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The Mecklenburg 

Declaration of 

Independence 

MAY 20, 1775 
AND LIVES OF ITS SIGNERS 



BY 



GEORGE W. GRAHAM, M. D. 



NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1905 



C<f1 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Copies Received 


DEC 1 1905 


. Copyrlgnt Entry 

Afa.A /90dT 

CLASS Ct XXC. No. 
COPY A. 



COPYRIGHT, 1905 

BY 

GEORGE W. GRAHAM, M. D. 



PREFACE 



This monograph upon the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion of Independence was read before the Scotch- 
Irish Society of America at its meeting in Lexing- 
ton, Virginia, on June 21, 1895, and is printed in 
Vol. VII of the transactions of that association. 
It has since been revised and enlarged and several 
separate editions issued in pamphlet. And, as the 
demand for the essay has exceeded the writer's 
expectations, it is now published in book form with 
a short biography of the signers of the declaration 
added. 

The author will be found to differ with some ad- 
vocates of the Mecklenburg Declaration, in that he 
acknowledges the verbal errors of the Davie copy of 
the resolutions, defines the position of the Thirty- 
first Resolves in the controversy, and shows why 
Martin's History of North Carolina is authentic, 
and therefore contains a correct account of the 
famous convention at Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775. 



Since this address was first presented to the Scotch- 
Irish Society, a number of writers, usually news- 
paper contributors, have copied freely from it and 
displayed their productions in the press without 
either quotation marks or any acknowledgment 
whatever as to the source of their information. 

The reader that desires to examine the authorities 
cited in this paper will find in the appendix a tran- 
script of the Davie copy of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion, so much of the preface to Martin's History as 
is pertinent to our subject, and a copy of the pam- 
phlet issued by the Legislature of North Carolina in 
1 83 1, containing Mr. Jefferson's letter to John 
Adams, and the testimony of spectators and delegates 
to the twentieth of May convention, as well as other 
interesting data germane to this question. 

George W. Graham, M. D. 

Charlotte, N. C. 
April, 1905. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface 5 

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence 9 

The Thirty-first Resolves 38 

The Lives of the Signers and a Few Spectators : 

Gen, Thomas Polk 84 

Col. Abraham Alexander ioo> 

Dr. Ephraim Brevard 103 

Col. Adam Alexander 107 

Gen. Robert Irwin no 

John McKnitt Alexander ill, 

Rev. Hezekiah Balch 114 

Hezekiah Alexander r 116 

Capt. Zaccheus Wilson 117 

Neil Morrison 120 

Richard Barry 121 

John Flennikin I2 2 

William Graham l2 3 

Matthew McClure • 123 

John Queary I2 4 

Ezra Alexander I2 4 

Waightstill Avery 125 

Col. William Kennon 127 

Col; James Harris 128 

David Reese 129 

Henry Downs J 30 

John Foard I 3i 

Charles Alexander I3 2 

Robert Harris, Sr 132 

Maj. John Davidson 1 34 

Col. Ezekiel Polk 130 

Capt. James Jack 137 

Rev. Francis Cummings, D. D 139 

Gen. Joseph Graham 14° 

Gen. George Graham 142 

Appendix— Documents Cited in Preceding Address : 

Martin's Preface 146 

Pamphlet Issued by the Legislature of North Carolina, 1831. 151 



THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE 

MAY 20, 1775 * 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The subject of our address to-day is the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration of Independence, a theme of deep 
interest to the Scotch-Irish fraternity, as the first men 
in America to cast off the British yoke were members 
of that brotherhood. The genuineness of this decla- 
ration has long been a subject of controversy among 
historians, because at the time of their writing all the 
proofs of its authenticity had not been gathered. 
During the past four years, we, aided by Professor 
Alexander Graham of Charlotte, North Carolina, 
have made a thorough investigation of this question, 
and now present to your honorable assembly the 
result of our research. It will be found to contain 
much new evir* mce that has never appeared in print, 
and, we think\ will remove all doubt as to there 
having been a . eclaration of Independence by the 
Scotch-Irish of A ecklenburg on May 19-20, 1775. 

The history of L ne adoption of this declaration, its 
publication, and the subsequent controversy regard- 
ing it, runs as follows : 



*See Preface. 



10 The Mecklenburg 

"In the months of March and April, 1775, the 
leading men in the county of Mecklenburg held 
meetings to ascertain the sense of the people, and to 
confirm them in their opposition to the claims of Par- 
liament to impose taxes and regulate the internal 
policy of the Colonies. At one of these meetings, 
when it was ascertained that the people were pre- 
pared to meet their wishes, it was agreed that Thomas 
Polk, then colonel commandant of the county, should 
issue an order directed to each captain of militia, 
requesting him to call a company meeting to elect two 
delegates from his company to meet in general com- 
mittee at Charlotte on the 19th of May; giving to the 
delegates ample power to adopt such measures as to 
them should seem best calculated to promote the com- 
mon cause of defending the rights of the Colony, and 
aiding their brethren in Massachusetts. Colonel 
Polk issued the order, and the delegates were elected. 
They met in Charlotte on the day appointed. The 
forms of their proceedings and the measures to be 
proposed had been previously agreed upon by the 
men at whose instance the committee were assembled. 
The Rev. Hezekiah Jones Balch, Dr. Ephraim 
Brevard, and William Kennon, Esq., an attorney at 
law, addressed the committee, and descanted on the 
causes which had led to the existing contest with the 
mother country, and the consequences which were to 
be apprehended unless the people should make a firm 
and energetic resistance to the right which Parlia- 
ment asserted of taxing the Colonies and regulating 
their internal policy. 



Declaration of Independence 11 

"On the day on which the committee met, the first 
intelligence of the action at Lexington, in Massachu- 
setts, on the 19th of April, was received in Charlotte. 
This intelligence produced the most decisive effect. 
A large concourse of people had assembled to witness 
the proceedings of the committee. The speakers 
addressed their discourses as well to them as to the 
committee, and those who were not convinced by 
their reasoning were influenced by their feelings, and 
all cried out : 'Let us be independent ! Let us declare 
our independence and defend it with our lives and 
fortunes !' A committee was appointed to draw up 
resolutions. This committee was composed of the 
men who had planned the whole proceedings, and 
who had already prepared the resolutions which it 
was intended should be submitted to the general com- 
mittee. Doctor Ephraim Brevard had drawn up the 
resolutions some time before and now reported them 
with amendments as follows : 

" T. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indi- 
rectly abets, or in any way, form, or manner counte- 
nances the invasion of our rights, as attempted by the 
Parliament of Great Britain, is an enemy to his 
country, to America, and to the rights of man. 

" 'II. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklen- 
burg County, do hereby dissolve the political bonds 
which have connected us with the mother country, 
and absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the Brit- 
ish crown, abjuring all political connection with a 
nation that has wantonly trampled on our rights and 
liberties and inhumanly shed innocent blood of Amer- 
icans at Lexington. 



1 12 The Mecklenburg 

" 'III. Resolved, That we do hereby declare our- 
selves a free and independent people; that we are, 
and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-govern- 
ing people under the power of God and the General 
Congress ; to the maintenance of which independence 
we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-op- 
eration, our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred 
honor. 

" TV. Resolved, That we hereby ordain and adopt 
as rules of conduct all and each of our former laws, 
and that the crown of Great Britain can not be con- 
sidered hereafter as holding any rights, privileges, or 
immunities amongst us. 

" 'V. Resolved, That all officers, both civil and 

military, in this county, be entitled to exercise the 

same powers and authorities as heretofore; that every 

member of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil 

officer and exercise the powers of a justice of the 

peace, issue process, hear and determine controversies 

according to law, preserve peace, union and harmony 

in the county, and use every exertion to spread the 

• love of liberty and of country until a more general 

/ and better organized system of government be estab- 

f lished. 

" 'VI. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions 
be transmitted by express to the President of the Con- 
tinental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, to be 
laid before that body.' 

"These resolutions were unanimously adopted and 
subscribed by the delegates. James Jack, then of 
Charlotte, but now residing in the State of Georgia, 
was engaged to be the bearer of the resolutions to the 



Declaration of Independence 13 

President of Congress, and directed to deliver copies 
of them to the delegates in Congress from North 
Carolina. The President returned a polite answer to 
the address which accompanied the resolutions, in 
which he highly approved of the measures adopted by 
the delegates of Mecklenburg, but deemed the subject 
of the resolutions premature to be laid before Con- 
gress. Messrs. Caswell, Hooper and Hewes for- 
warded a joint letter, in which they complimented the 
people of Mecklenburg for their zeal in the common 
cause, and recommended to them the strict observ- 
ance of good order ; that the time would soon come 
when the whole continent would follow their 
example. 

"On the day that the resolutions were adopted by 
the delegates in Charlotte, they were read aloud to 
the people who had assembled in the town, and pro- 
claimed amidst the shouts and huzzas, as expressing 
the feelings and determination of all present. When 
Captain Jack reached Salisbury, on his way to 
Philadelphia, the general court was sitting and Mr. 
Kennon, an attorney at law,, who had assisted in the 
proceedings of the delegates at Charlotte, was then 
in Salisbury. At the request of the judges, Mr. 
Kennon read the resolutions aloud in open court, to 
a large concourse of people; they were listened to 
with attention and approved by all present. 

"The delegates at Charlotte being empowered to 
adopt such measures as in their opinion would best 
promote the common cause, established a variety of 
regulations for managing the concerns of the county. 
Courts of justice were held under the direction of the 



14 The Mecklenburg 

delegates. For some months these courts were held 
at Charlotte; but for the convenience of the people 
( for at that time Cabarrus formed part of Mecklen- 
burg), two other places were selected, and the courts 
were held at each in rotation. The delegates 
appointed a committee of their body who were called 
'a committee of safety, and they were empowered to 
examine all persons brought before them charged 
with being inimical to the common cause, and to 
send the military into the neighboring counties to 
arrest suspected persons. In the exercise of this 
power, the committee sent into Lincoln and Rowan 
counties, and had a number of persons arrested and 
brought before them. Those who manifested peni- 
tence for their toryism, and took an oath to support 
the cause of liberty and of the country, were dis- 
charged. Others were sent under guard into South 
Carolina for safe keeping. The meeting of the dele- 
gates at Charlotte and the proceedings which grew 
out of that meeting, produced the zeal and unanimity 
for which the people of Mecklenburg were distin- 
guished during the whole of the Revolutionary War. 
They became united as a band of brothers, whose 
confidence in each other, and the cause which they 
had sworn to support, was never shaken, in the 
worst of times." 

The above extract is copied from the eleventh 
chapter of the second volume of Martin's History of 
North Carolina. 

In order to fully appreciate the discussion that is 
to follow it is important to bear in mind, as the his- 
torian savs : First, that the delegates, assembled at 



Declaration of Independence 15 

Charlotte, declared the county of Mecklenburg, 
North Carolina, independent of the crown of Great 
Britain ; Second, they established a code of laws for 
managing their new government, and Third, placed a 
"Committee of Safety" in charge of the administra- 
tion. All three of these things, remember, were done 
by one and the same convention on May 19-20, 1775.* 
The reason for thus emphasizing this fact will appear 
as we proceed. 

Martin's History further declares that the pro- 
ceedings at Charlotte were transmitted to Philadel- 
phia for ratification by the Continental Congress, 
and that the President, deeming the subject of the 
resolutions "premature," declined to submit them to 
that body for consideration. 

This unwillingness to recognize the Mecklenburg 
Declaration of Independence, we infer from the pro- 
ceedings, was due to the fact that when the messen- 
ger, bearing the declaration, arrived in Philadelphia 
he found the Continental Congress not only opposed 
to independence individually, but actually preparing 
a petition to King George the Third, which was sub- 
sequently subscribed by everv member on July 8, 
1775, declaring, "We have not raised armies with 
the ambitious design of separating from Great 
Britain and establishing independent States." And, 
of course, any measure demanding secession from 



♦The delegates met on May 19, and John McKnitt Alexander, 
the secretary, says, "After sitting in the court-house all night, 
neither sleepy, hungry, nor fatigued," adopted the declaration 
"about 2 o'clock A. M., May 20." See Legislative Pamphlet in 
Appendix for Alexander's testimony. 



16 The Mecklenburg 

the mother country received no consideration from 
Congress. Yet, notwithstanding the Continental 
Assembly, through its President, declined to sanc- 
tion this bold action of the men of Mecklenburg, 
their new government was maintained just the same 
through its Committee of Safety, and British 
authority forever ceased at Charlotte, North Caro- 
lina, on May 20, 1775. 

At the meeting of the delegates in Charlotte, John 
McKnitt Alexander was chosen secretary, and thus 
became custodian of the records. In April, 1800, 
twenty-five years after this meeting, these records, 
including the Mecklenburg Declaration, were burned 
with Alexander's dwelling. In the mean time, how- 
ever, the old secretary, as he is called, had tran- 
scribed not less than five copies of the original res- 
olutions, and, after the destruction of the declara- 
tion, Alexander made two additional copies from 
memory, and presented one of them to his friend, 
General William R. Davie. This memory tran- 
script is known to historians as the "Davie copy.'*' 
It contains many verbal errors, and, besides being 
written in the past tense, instead of the present, omits 
the sixth resolution. Alexander, however, confesses 
to a possible lapse of memory, when writing the 
Davie copy, in the following certificate upon its 
back: 

"The foregoing statement, though fundamen- 
tally correct, may not literally correspond with the 
original record of the transactions of said delega- 
tion."* , ' 



*See Davie copy in archives of State University. 



Declaration of Independence 17 

In 1 819, two years after the death of John Mc- 
Knitt Alexander, an account of the proceedings at 
Charlotte, including a duplicate of the Davie copy 
of the resolutions, was published in the Raleigh Reg- 
ister, by his son, Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander, 
with this note appended : 

"The foregoing is a true copy of the papers, on 
the above subject, left in my hands by John McKnitt 
Alexander, deceased." 

This publication was copied into the Essex Reg- 
ister, of Massachusetts, and referred by John Adams 
to Thomas Jefferson, whom it appears to have vexed 
greatly, as he wrote Mr. Adams : "And you seem to 
think it [the declaration] genuine. I believe it spu- 
rious. I deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz."* In 
the same letter Mr. Jefferson also harshly criticises 
the patriotism of two of his associate members of 
Congress from North Carolina, accusing Hooper of 
toryism and Hewes of "wavering" in the American 
cause; forgetting that he himself, with every other 
member of Congress, was opposed to independence 
at the time the Mecklenburg Declaration was 
received in Philadelphia, as is evidenced by the 
petition, above quoted, which as already stated was 
subscribed by every delegate in that body on July 8, 

1775. 

With this letter of Mr. Jefferson, dated July 9, 
1 8 19, repudiating the Mecklenburg Declaration, 
began the controversy as to the genuineness of the 
resolutions. The friends of that venerable states- 



*Page 314, vol. 4, Jefferson's works. This letter is also copied 
in the Legislative pamphlet. See Appendix. 



18 The Mecklenburg 

man contending that it was impos : ble for John 
McKnitt Alexander to re-write the resolutions from 
memory, and that in his effort to do so he had con- 
fused the Mecklenburg and National declarations 
and introduced several phrases peculiar to the latter 
document. These friends were not aware, as will 
appear presently, that several genuine copies of the 
Mecklenburg resolutions were extant, and in the 
possession of historians and others long anterior to 
the burning of the records with Alexander's dwell- 
ing, and had Alexander refrained from making an 
autograph copy of the resolutions from memory, the 
declaration would still have been preserved and the 
long controversy caused by the Davie copy avoided. 
And, although the followers of Mr. Jefferson 
allege that the Mecklenburg Declaration was never 
known previous to its publication in the Raleigh 
Register in 1819, there is abundant evidence to prove 
that at least seven authentic copies of those resolu- 
tions were in existence before the proceedings of the 
convention were burned in 1800. Of these seven 
transcripts, four, at the direction of the delegates, 
were transmitted to Congress at Philadelphia by 
John McKnitt Alexander, shortly after the meeting 
at Charlotte adjourned. One to the President, and 
one copy each to the three members from North 
Carolina. A fifth copy appeared in the Cape Fear 
Mercury in June, 1775, within thirty days after the 
declaration was adopted. A sixth copy was presented 
by Alexander to Dr. Hugh Williamson, who was 
then writing a history of the State, and Governor 
Stokes, in the preface to a pamphlet issued by the 



Declaration of Independence 19 

Legislature of i 30-31, testifies to having seen that 
copy, with a letter from John McKnitt Alexander, in 
the possession of Williamson as early as 1793. And 
a seventh copy of the declaration, which the author 
says was obtained before 1800, the year the records 
were burned, is preserved in Martin's History of 
North Carolina. 

It is with this seventh or Martin copy of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration that we propose to deal 
to-day. And it is well, therefore, before proceeding 
farther, to inquire who Martin was and ascertain 
his possible sources of information as- to the conven- 
tion at Chailotte on May 19-20, 1775. 

According to his preface and the North Carolina 
University Magazine for April, 1893, Francois 
Xavia Martin in 1782, at the age of 20, came from 
France to New Berne, North Carolina, where he 
first taught school, then published a newspaper, and 
subsequently practised law. In 1791-92. by a reso- 
lution of the General Assembly, he was engaged to 
compile and publish the British Statutes, then in use 
in North Carolina, and in 1803 to edit and print the 
private acts of the Legislature. The character of 
this work and the collection of materials for a State 
history, which, the preface says, began to engage the 
attention of that author as early as 1791, required 
the presence of Mr. Martin at the State capitol, 
where he had access to the public documents and 
colonial records. There he saw much of William 
Polk, George Graham, and Joseph Graham, who 
witnessed the adoption of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion, and became personally acquainted with James 



20 The Mecklenburg 

Harris and Robert Irwin, two of the delegates that 
signed the resolutions, as all five of these men, 
Wheeler's History says, were successively members 
of the Legislature from Mecklenburg County from 
1 79 1 to 1803, the time Mr. Martin was serving the 
State and collecting material for his book. 

In 1806 Mr. Martin w r as chosen a member of the 
General Assembly for the borough of New Berne, 
when he was again associated with George Graham, 
who had been re-elected, and also with Nathaniel 
Alexander, who, at that time, was Chief Executive 
of North Carolina. Governor Alexander, besides 
being a citizen of Mecklenburg County, was a 
brother-in-law of Ephraim Brevard, who drew the 
declaration, and a son-in-law of Col. Thomas Polk, 
who read the resolutions aloud from the court-house 
steps, immediately after their adoption, to the large 
concourse of people that had assembled to witness 
the proceedings of the delegates. 

Next, Mr. Martin's home was in Craven County, 
where he personally knew Richard Caswell, who 
lived in the adjoining county of Dobbs, as both men 
were lawyers and contemporary attorneys at the bar 
of New Berne, and the neighboring towns for 
several years, prior to the death of Caswell in 1789. 

Richard Caswell is the man that represented the 
New Berne district in the Continental Congress from 
1774 to 1776, and was a member of that assembly 
when Captain Jack, the bearer of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration to Congress, arrived in Philadelphia, and 
is known to have received a special copy of the reso- 
lutions from Jack. For, as before stated, that messen- 



Declaration of Independence 21 

ger had been directed by the delegates at Charlotte 
to deliver copies of the proceedings to the three 
members from North Carolina as well as the Presi- 
dent of Congress. And, in acknowledging the 
receipt of a copy of the declaration, Caswell, in a 
joint letter with his colleagues Hewes and Hooper, 
predicted that the whole continent would soon follow 
Mecklenburg's example in declaring independence. 
Further, Mr. Martin having been appointed a 
Federal judge, removed to Mississippi in 1809, and 
a year later was transferred to Louisiana. And, as 
we learn from his preface, had completed the manu- 
script of the first two volumes of his history, begun 
in 1 79 1, prior to leaving North Carolina for the far 
South. These volumes, which recount the State's 
history, including the circumstances of the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration, down to the summer of 1776, were 
taken by the author in manuscript to New Orleans, 
to await the completion of a third and a fourth 
volume, for which, the preface informs us, there were 
"very ample notes and materials." But owing to 
a busy life and feeble health after his arrival in 
Louisiana, and finding no opportunity for finishing 
volumes three and four of his book, Judge Martin, 
continues the preface, printed the manuscript of 
one and two without revision in 1829. Thus it is 
seen that, although Martin's History was not pub- 
lished until twenty years after it was written and 
ten years after Mr. Jefferson first questioned the 
authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration, the 
manuscript had been prepared 1791 to 1809 and 
shipped to New Orleans ten years before the begin- 



22 The Mecklenburg 

ning of the controversy. And this long delay in 
printing the manuscript — years after the appearance 
of the Davie copy — no doiibt caused Mr. Bancroft 
and other noted historians, who evidently failed to 
read his preface, to undervalue Martin's account of 
what was done at Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775. 
Again, the adoption of the Mecklenburg Declaration 
is recorded in the last chapter of the last volume of 
Martin's History, and for that reason the "doubters" 
contend that this final chapter was added by the 
author after his book had been finished, in order to 
settle the controversy caused by the appearance of 
the Davie copy, which John McKnitt Alexander is 
known to have made from memory. If this con- 
tention of the opposition is true, the resolutions in 
Martin's History should be a copy of the Davie 
resolutions, with which they do not agree, for, 
according to Mr. Jefferson's friends, there was no 
Mecklenburg Declaration extant prior to 1819, when 
the Davie paper appeared in the Raleigh Register. 

Next, Prof. Charles Phillips, one of Mr. Jeffer- 
son's most ardent supporters in the North Carolina 
University Magazine for May, 1853, not only 
declares that "the Martin copy of the declaration is 
evidently a polished edition of the Davie copy," but 
insinuates that the sixth resolution, which forms 
part of the Martin series, but not that of Davie, was 
added by the judge. Showing that Dr. Phillips, 
like many other students of this question, failed to 
examine Martin's preface, from which he would 
have discovered that the Martin resolutions are not 
only older than the Davie transcript, but that the 



Declaration of Independence 23 

Judge, finishing his book in 1809, ten years before 
the declaration controversy arose, had no incentive 
either to polish or amend the Mecklenburg resolu- 
tions. Besides, Judge Martin's reputation as a 
jurist and historian would have forbidden such 
trifling with history. 

Further, the assertion that the chapter containing 
the declaration is a supplement to Martin's History 
is also contradicted by the arrangement of the book, 
which is written in annals — each event recorded 
under the year in which it happened. For example, 
chapter ten of the second volume is filled with events 
occurring in 1774-75 and chapter eleven, which 
describes the adoption of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion, with those of 1775-76. And the proceedings 
of the delegates at Charlotte are recorded under the 
year 1775, an d followed by other incidents of North 
Carolina history in their chronological order, down 
to August, 1776, where the volume ends. 

Again, Martin's manuscript is shown to have been 
neither revised nor enlarged after 1809, when the 
author became a citizen of Louisiana, by the fact that 
he refers to Captain Jack, in the extract from his his- 
tory quoted in the opening of our address, as still 
living, where he says, "J ames J ack > tnen of Charlotte, 
but now residing in the State of Georgia, was 
engaged to be the bearer of the resolutions to the 
President of Congress." Yet we find in Hunter's 
Sketches of Western North Carolina that Jack died 
in 1822, seven years before Martin's History went to 
press. That the publication of Martin's book was 
deferred long after the author had written it and 



24 The Mecklenburg 

removed to the far South is made evident by the fol- 
lowing assertion in the preface : "The determination 
has been taken to put the work to press in the condi- 
tion it was when it reached New Orleans; this has 
prevented any use being made of Williamson's His- 
tory of North Carolina (printed in 1812), a copy of 
which did not reach the writer's hands till after his 
arrival in Louisiana." 

And the truthfulness of Martin's History is shown 
by the care with which the work was prepared. For 
example, at the close of each chapter the author cites 
the source or sources from which its contents were 
derived. And at the end of that describing the 
adoption of the Mecklenburg Declaration the reader 
is referred to "records, magazines, gazettes" as the 
contemporary publications from which the author's 
facts were obtained. And, of course, the newspaper 
from which the historian procured his account of 
the proceedings at Charlotte could have been no 
other than the Cape Fear Mercury of June, 1775, as 
that is the only gazette known to have printed the 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence prior to 
the writing of Martin's History or the burning of 
the original resolutions with John McKnitt Alex- 
ander's residence in April, 1800. 

Additional proof that the copy of the resolutions, 
printed by Martin, were transcribed before the 
original series were burned with Alexander's resi- 
dence, is furnished by the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, 
D. D., LL. D., whose reputation as a divine is a 
sufficient guarantee of his loyalty to the truth. On 
May 20, 1857, Dr. Hawks delivered the anniversary 



Declaration of Independence 25 

address of the twentieth of May celebration at Char- 
lotte, and in the course of his remarks said that some 
years before, when he and Judge Martin resided in 
New Orleans, he asked that historian where and 
when he procured the copy of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration printed in his book, to which the Judge 
replied, "In the western part of the State, prior to 
the year 1800." Whether it was a manuscript or 
newspaper copy is not stated, but probably the latter, 
as Mr. Martin also said, "It was not obtained from 
Alexander." 

Such is the history of Martin the historian. 
From it we have ascertained : 

( 1 ) That Martin was engaged from 1791 to 1809, 
nearly twenty years, in work which gave him official 
access to the public documents and colonial records 
of North Carolina, and, as his book states, he 
gleaned from the contemporary records, magazines, 
and gazettes all data pertinent to the Mecklenburg 
Declaration ; 

(2) That Martin possessed a copy of that declara- 
tion made before April, 1800, when the original 
resolutions were burned with John McKnitt Alex- 
ander's house, and had also read the proceedings of 
the delegates printed in the Cape Fear Mercury of 
June, 1775; 

(3) That while collecting materials for his his- 
tory Martin was daily associated with five members 
of the Legislature from Mecklenburg County that 
were present when the declaration was adopted — 
two of whom signed the resolutions. And Martin 
had previously known personally at least one mem- 



26 The Mecklenburg 

ber of the Continental Congress that received a 
special copy of the declaration from the delegates at 
Charlotte ; And 

(4) That at the time Martin's account of the 
convention was prepared, 1791 to 1809, all the facts 
he recorded were to be had from living witnesses, a 
privilege seldom enjoyed by historians. 

Having ascertained the possible sources of 
Martin's information, and seen the importance of 
examining the preface to a history before discredit- 
ing the author's narrative, we will now examine the 
data of Major Alexander Garden, who wrote 
"Anecdotes of the American Revolution," in which 
he corroborates Martin as to the date and action of 
the Mecklenburg convention, and learn Garden's 
opportunities for obtaining information upon that 
subject. 

Alexander Garden was a citizen of Charleston, 
South Carolina, and an officer in Lee's famous 
legion, in which command page 235 of Wheeler's 
History of North Carolina says there were also 
troops from Mecklenburg County. Later Major 
Garden was appointed aide-de-camp to General 
Greene, where he was constantly associated with 
Thomas Polk, another member of Greene's staff. 
This being the same Colonel Polk who, immediately 
after signing the Mecklenburg Declaration, read the 
resolutions aloud to the large concourse of people 
that assembled at Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775, to 
witness the proceedings of the delegates. And at 
the close of the Revolutionary War Major Garden 
returned to his home in Charleston, to which city his 



Declaration of Independence 27 

Mecklenburg comrade-in-arms made frequent jour- 
neys, as in those days Charleston was the market in 
which the farmers of that county sold their crops 
and the Charlotte merchants purchased goods. 
Freight w T as transported entirely with wagons, 
which required the presence of their owners in town 
to superintend the handling of their produce and 
merchandise. These constant visits of Mecklenburg 
veterans no doubt afforded Major Garden ample 
opportunity for ascertaining the facts as to the action 
of the delegates at Charlotte in May, 1775. Further, 
I am informed that Garden was a member of the 
Charleston Library, an important circumstance as 
we shall see farther on, and when collecting material 
for his anecdotes, thoroughly examined all the news- 
paper files of that institution, as is abundantly proved 
by the large number of extracts copied from them 
into his book. Besides, there were other avenues 
of information open to Major Garden, as in the same 
command with him during the Revolutionary War 
was his personal friend Dr. William Read, another 
citizen of Charleston. Dr. Read at one period 
of the war was a member of General Wash- 
ington's staff, and in 1781 was appointed by Con- 
gress hospital physician for the Department of the 
South, with headquarters at Charlotte, North Caro- 
lina,* where he was for some time closely associated 
with Ephraim Brevard, who drew the Mecklenburg 
Declaration, and John McKnitt Alexander, the 



*Doctor Toner's manuscript collection of "Biographical Data 
Regarding American Physicians," preserved in Congressional 
Library, Washington, D. C. 



28 The Mecklenburg 

secretary of the convention that adopted it, as 
Brevard was a patient of Dr. Read in the home of 
Alexander for many weeks immediately preceding 
his death in 1781. And on page 181 of the appendix 
to his manuscript work upon the Mecklenburg 
Declaration of Independence, preserved in the 
Thwait Library at Madison, Wisconsin, Lyman 
Draper states that "Dr. Brevard," who had been a 
prisoner at Charleston, "when at length set at liberty, 
reached the home of his friend John McKnitt Alex- 
ander, where he lingered several months, his disease 
baffling the best medical skill, Dr. William Read, 
Physician General of the Southern Army, visiting 
him from Charlotte." And we are informed by 
Major Garden himself that some of the historical 
items in "Anecdotes of the American Revolution" 
were obtained from Dr. Read. For example, after 
describing the action of the delegates in May, 1775, 
Garden adds: "Of the zeal of the inhabitants in 
the vicinity of Charlotte and Salisbury in favor of 
the cause of their country, my friend Dr. William 
Read has recently given striking proof." 

The first series of "Anecdotes of the American 
Revolution" were published by Garden in 1822, the 
second series in 1828, and the whole reprinted in 
three volumes in 1865. The circumstances of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration are narrated on pages 7, 
8 and 9 of the third volume, and the account of the 
meeting at Charlotte is the same as that recorded by 
Martin, only more condensed, and like Martin's 
version evidently taken from the Cape Fear Mercury 
of June, 1775. For, upon comparing the two 



Declaration of Independence 29 

descriptions of the convention, as recorded in 
Martin's History of North Carolina and "Anecdotes 
of the American Revolution," the reader will find 
the date of the meeting, the language of the resolu- 
tions, and often whole sentences in the two narra- 
tives to be literally the same, thereby proving them 
to have come from a common source. And in 
neither account is there any evidence that Martin or 
Garden knew of the Davie copy of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration at the time their histories were written. 
Garden could not have copied his narrative from 
Martin's History, for "Anecdotes of the American 
Revolution" was printed first, in 1828, and Martin's 
work one year later, 1829. Besides, in his address 
at Charlotte, before referred to, Dr. Hawks states 
that Judge Martin had told him that he did not give 
Garden a copy of the resolutions, or know that he 
possessed one. Neither could Martin have borrowed 
from Garden, for Martin announces in his preface 
that he "put the work to press in the condition it 
was when it reached New Orleans," in 1809, nearly 
twenty years before Garden's book was printed. 
Thus Martin and Garden, working independently of 
each other, and upon materials only in part the same, 
arrive at the same conclusion as to what was done 
at Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775. And in this con- 
nection it is well to remember that Martin and 
Garden, of all writers on this subject, are the only 
historians that personally knew men that were 
present when the declaration was made, and that 
Martin's History and "Anecdotes of the American 



30 The Mecklenburg 

Revolution" are only discredited by doubting critics 
who have no personal knowledge of the events which 
Martin and Garden describe. 

Excepting the official papers of the Colonial 
Governor of North Carolina, which will be consid- 
ered in their proper place, the earliest documentary 
reference to the Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, of which there is any record, is found in 
"The Mecklenburg Censor," a poem written in 1777 
by Adam Brevard, a brother of the author of the 
twentieth of May resolutions. The genuineness of 
the "Censor" is vouched for by Wheeler's History 
of North Carolina, Lyman Draper's manuscript in 
the Thwait Library, and Hon. David L. Swain, then 
president of the University of North Carolina, in 
whose possession the original poem was at the time 
of his death in 1868. And in the appendix of 
Draper's manuscript there is a copy of a letter from 
Governor Swain to Hon. George Bancroft, the his- 
torian, dated March 18, 1858, which reads: "The 
poem to which I refer above bears date March 18, 
1777, extends through two hundred and sixty lines, 
and is of unquestionable authenticity. It opens as 
follows : 

"THE MECKLENBURG CENSOR. 

"When Mecklenburg's fantastic rabble, 
Renowned for censure, scold and gabble, 
In Charlotte met in giddy council, 
To lay the constitution's ground-sill, 
By choosing men both learned and wise, 
Who clearly could with half shut eyes, 
See mill-stones through or spy a plot, 
Whether existed such or not; . \ 



Declaration of Independence 31 

Who always could at noon define 

Whether the sun or moon did shine, 

And by philosophy tell whether, 

It was dark or sunny weather, 

And sometimes, when their wits were nice, 

Could well distinguish men from mice. 

First to withdraw from British trust, 

In congress, they, the very first, 

Their Independence did declare." 

Here Adam Brevard, who witnessed the proceed- 
ings of the delegates, testifies over his own signature, 
less than two years after the meeting, that those 
delegates did "withdraw from British trust" earlier 
than the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. 

The next proof, in chronological order, that 
Mecklenburg County declared her independence of 
Great Britain in May, 1775, is found in numerous 
deeds which were executed during and immediately 
after the Revolutionary War, and are now on file in 
the court-house at Charlotte. For after independence 
had been resolved upon by the men of Mecklenburg, 
and- long before liberty was won by America, owing 
to the unsettled state of affairs, there was among 
the people of the county a great diversity as to the 
manner of drawing deeds. And, as no fixed stand- 
ard of preparation was in vogue, as many as three 
different styles of these documents are preserved 
among the county records. Some of these transfers 
of property are dated "in the reign of King George 
the Third;" some, prepared by patriots of strong 
local pride, reckon the time of "our independence" 
from the Mecklenburg Declaration, while others 
recite the date of their execution from "American 



32 The Mecklenburg 

Independence." "King George deeds" were not 
recorded after the year 1777, while those relating 
to "our independence" and "American Independ- 
ence" were both registered as late as 1799, when, 
most of the county's Revolutionary veterans having 
passed away, the National Declaration became the 
sole standard. 

These Mecklenburg Declaration indentures, of 
which we quote several, read : 

(1) "This indenture made this 13th day of 
February, 1779, and in the fourth year of our inde- 
pendence." Page 15, book 36. Robert Harris, 
Register. 

(2) "This indenture made this 28th day of Jan- 
uary, in the fifth year of our independence and the 
year of our Lord Christ 1780." Page 29, book 1. 
William Alexander, Register. 

(3) "This indenture made on the 19th day of 
May, and in the year of our Lord 1783, and the 
eighth year of our independence." Page 119, book 
2. John McKnitt Alexander, Register. 

(4) Peter Reap, forgetting that the Mecklenburg 
Declaration was only a county affair, dates the inde- 
pendence of his State from it as follows : "This 
indenture made the year of our Lord 1789, and on 
the 1 8th day of April, and being the 14th year of 
the independence of the State of North Carolina." 
Page 95' book 11. John McKnitt Alexander, 
Register. 

As these deeds were executed and filed thirty and 
forty years prior to the Mecklenburg controversy, 
their testimony is incontrovertible. And be it 



Declaration of Independence 33 

remembered, that "our independence," repeated in 
those deeds, are the identical words, according to 
Martin's History, shouted by the vast throng of 
people that assembled in Charlotte on May 19-20, 
1775, and demanded freedom of their delegates.* 

Notwithstanding the claim of Mr. Jefferson's 
friends that the Mecklenburg Declaration was never 
heard of previous to the publication of the Davie 
copy in the Raleigh Register in 1819, we find its 
glories proclaimed by a school boy ten years anterior 
to that date, when James Wallis, a pupil of Sugar 
Creek Academy, three miles east of Charlotte, makes 
the following announcement in his declamation at the 
closing exercises of that institution on June 1, 1809. 
Wallis's recitation was printed in the Raleigh 
Minerva of August 10, 1809, and copied in part into 
the Catawba Journal of July 11, 1826, which latter 
paper is now in our possession, and credits the boy's 
address to the Minerva of the above date. Wallis 
in part said: "On May 19, 1775, a day sacredly 
exulting to every Mecklenburg bosom, two dele- 
gates, duly authorized from each militia company 
in the county, met in Charlotte. After a cool and 
deliberate investigation of the causes and extent of 
our differences with Great Britain, and taking a 
review of probable results, pledging their all in 
support of their rights and liberties, they solemnly 
entered into and published a full and determined 
Declaration of Independence, renouncing forever all 
allegiance, dependences or connection with Great 



*See extract from Martin's History quoted at the opening 
of this discourse. 



34 The Mecklenburg 

Britain — dissolved all judicial and military establish- 
ments emanating from the British crown and estab- 
lished others on principles corresponding with their 
declaration which went into immediate operation, all 
of which was transmitted to Congress by express 
and probably expedited the general Declaration of 
Independence. May we ever act worthy of such 
predecessors." This boy, James Wiallis, bear in 
mind, gives substantially the same account of the 
Charlotte convention as Martin's History. That is, 
the delegates met in Charlotte on May 19, 1775, 
declared the county of Mecklenburg independent of 
Great Britain, established a code of laws for the 
new government, and sent the proceedings to the 
Continental Congress. Where did James Wallis get 
his facts? In 1809 neither Martin's History nor 
"Anecdotes of the American Revolution" had been 
printed, and the Davie copy was not published until 
1 81 9, ten years subsequent to that date. His only 
resource then was spectators and delegates to the 
convention, several of whom were then still living 
in the county, as John McKnitt Alexander, we know, 
survived until 181 7, and John Davidson, another 
signer, until 1830, and a few of the spectators, who 
were much younger men, still longer. 

In addition to this, the Rev. Samuel C. Caldwell, 
the head of Sugar Creek Academy and pastor of 
Sugar Creek Presbyterian Church, under whose 
auspices the school was conducted, married a 
daughter of John McKnitt Alexander in 1793, seven 
years anterior to the burning of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration with Alexander's residence, and no 



Declaration of Independence 35 

doubt Mr. Caldwell often saw the resolutions in the 
possession of his father-in-law, as tradition says they 
were a favorite topic of conversation with the "old 
secretary." The Rev. Caldwell was pastor of Sugar 
Creek Church from 1792 to 1826, and at the time 
of James Wallis's declamation, in 1809, had been 
in charge of that congregation about seventeen years. 
This gave that minister ample opportunity to become 
familiar with the circumstances of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration, as many of his flock had been present 
when it was adopted, and Abraham Alexander, the 
Chairman of the delegates, was an elder in Sugar 
Creek Church for years previous to his death in 
1786. And if Wallis's recitation had contained any 
errors, as to the proceedings of the delegates at 
Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775, Mr. Caldwell, in the 
fullness of his knowledge, would have corrected 
them before the address was repeated in public, as 
it was customary for the pupils to rehearse their 
"pieces" to the teacher preparatory to declaiming 
them at commencement. 

Again, the date of the adoption of the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration is determined by the following 
circumstance: On May 20, 1787, the twelfth anni- 
versary of the meeting at Charlotte, there was born 
to Major John Davidson, one of the signers, a son, 
Benjamin Wilson. And in honor of the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration Benjamin was called by his father 
"My Independence Boy," and to distinguish his 
identity in a county abounding in "Davidsons," was 
known among the neighbors as "Independence Ben." 
For this fact we are indebted to Mr. Robert F., aged 



36 The Mecklenburg 

seventy-five, and Dr. Joseph, aged sixty-eight years, 
sons of Benjamin Wilson Davidson, who now reside 
in Charlotte and are men of the highest integrity. 
Ben Davidson died when about forty-five years of ag* 
and is buried in Hopewell Cemetery, where his tomb- 
stone now stands with the date of his birth, May 20, 
1787, inscribed upon it. In those days it was not 
unusual in Mecklenburg County to call children for 
public events, and we find Col. Thomas Polk, 
another signer, with a nephew named Thomas 
Independence, because born July 4, 1786. 

Up to this stage of our investigations the evidences 
of the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration 
of Independence range themselves in the following 
chronological order : 
/ (1) The poem, "Mecklenburg Censor," of March 
18, 1777; 

(2) Birth of Benjamin Wilson Davidson on May 
20, 1787; 

(3) The deeds, executed during and immediately 
after the Revolutionary War, dating our independ- 
ence from the Mecklenburg Declaration ; 

(4) Martin's History of North Carolina, written 
1 79 1 to 1809, in which the author cites contemporary 
records, magazines and gazettes as the authority for 
his account of the adoption of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration of Independence ; 

(5) "Anecdotes of the American Revolution,' , 
whose editor, Major Garden, personally knew Col. 
Thomas Polk and other Mecklenburg soldiers ; 

(6) The school boy's declamation of June 1, 
1809; 



Declaration of Independence 37 

(7) And the Davie copy of the resolutions, which, 
instead of being a cause for controversy, should be 
considered one of the best corroborative evidences 
of the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration. 

As we said near the beginning of our discourse, 
when a duplicate of the Davie copy was first printed 
in the Raleigh Register in 181 9, by Dr. Joseph 
McKnitt Alexander, son of "the old secretary," the 
friends of Thomas Jefferson alleged that John 
McKnitt Alexander, in transcribing the resolutions 
from memory, confused the Mecklenburg and 
National Declarations. They also contended that 
no meeting, at which independence was proclaimed, 
was ever held in Charlotte on any day. And the 
more zealous of those partizans charged Dr. Joseph 
McKnitt Alexander with "tergiversation" in pub- 
lishing the Mecklenburg Declaration at all, as it was 
"only an attempt to convict Mr. Jefferson of plagiar- 
ism, and thus rob him of the authorship of the first 
American Declaration of Independence." At the 
same time the friends and neighbors of John 
McKnitt Alexander rallied to the old secretary's 
support, but instead of trying to show the authen- 
ticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration as printed in 
the Cape Fear Mercury of June, 1775, they thought- 
lessly undertook to prove the Davie copy of the 
resolutions to be verbally accurate, notwithstanding 
Alexander's certificate on the back of that transcript 
claimed them to be only "fundamentally correct." 
Thus the controversy was joined with more or less 



38 The Mecklenburg 

acrimony. And in this condition it remained for 
nearly twenty years, or until 1838, when the follow- 
ing resolutions were introduced into the discussion : 

THE THIRTY-FIRST RESOLVES 

"Charlottetown, Mecklenburg County, 
"May 31st, 1775. 

"This day the Committee of this county met and 
passed the following resolves : — 

"Whereas, By an address presented to His 
Majesty by both Houses of Parliament in February 
last, the American Colonies are declared to be in a 
state of actual rebellion, we conceive that all laws 
and commissions confirmed by or derived from the 
authority of the King and Parliament are annulled 
and vacated, and the former civil constitution of 
these colonies for the present wholly suspended. To 
provide in some degree for the exigencies of this 
county in the present alarming period, we deem it 
proper and necessary to pass the following resolves, 
viz: — 

"I. That all commissions, civil and military, here- 
tofore granted by the crown to be exercised in these 
colonies, are null and void, and the constitution of 
each particular colony wholly suspended. 

"II. That the Provincial Congress of each 
Province, under the direction of the Great Con- 
tinental Congress, is invested with all legislative and 
executive powers within their respective provinces, 
and that no other legislative or executive power does 
or can exist at this time in any of these colonies. 



Declaration of Independence 39 

"III. As all former laws are now suspended in 
this Province, and the Congress has not yet provided 
others, we judge it necessary for the better preserva- 
tion of good order, to form certain rules and regula- 
tions for the Internal Government of this county, 
until laws shall be provided for us by the Congress. 

'IV. That the inhabitants of this county do meet 
on a certain day appointed by the Committee, and 
having formed themselves into nine companies (to 
wit: eight for the county and one for the town), do 
choose a colonel and other military officers, who shall 
hold and exercise their several powers by virtue of 
the choice, and independent of the crown of Great 
Britain, and former constitution of this province. 

"V. That for the better preservation of the peace 
and administration of justice, each of those com- 
panies do choose from their own body two discreet 
freeholders, who shall be empowered each by him- 
self, and singly, to decide and determine all matters 
of controversy arising within said company, under 
the sum of twenty shillings, and jointly and together 
all controversies under the sum of forty shillings, 
yet so as their decisions may admit of appeal to the 
Convention of the Select Men of the County, and 
also that any one of these men shall have power to 
examine and commit to confinement persons accused 
of petit larceny. 

"VI. That those two select men thus chosen do 
jointly and together choose from the body of their 
particular company two persons to act as constables, 
who may assist them in the execution of their office. 



40 The Mecklenburg 

"VII. That upon the complaint of any persons to 
either of these select men, he do issue his warrant 
directed to the constable, commanding him to bring 
the aggressor before him to answer said complaint. 

"VIII. That these select eighteen select men thus 
appointed do meet every third Thursday in January, 
April, July and October at the Court-House in 
Charlotte, to hear and determine all matters of con- 
troversy for sums exceeding 40^., also appeals ; and 
in case of felony to commit the persons convicted 
thereof to close confinement until the Provincial 
Congress shall provide and establish laws and modes 
of proceeding in all such cases. 

"IX. That these eighteen select men thus con- 
vened do choose a clerk, to record the transactions 
of said convention, and that said clerk, upon the 
application of any person or persons aggrieved, do 
issue his warrant to any of the constables of the 
company to which the offender belongs, directing 
said constable to summon and warn said offender 
to appear before said convention at their next sitting, 
to answer the aforesaid complaint. 

"X. That any person making complaint, upon 
oath, to the clerk, or any member of the convention, 
that he has reason to suspect that any person or 
persons indebted to him in a sum above forty shill- 
ings intend clandestinely to withdraw from the 
county without paying the debt, the clerk or such 
member shall issue his warrant to the constable, 
commanding him to take said person or persons into 
safe custody until the next sitting of the convention. 



Declaration of Independence 41 

"XI. That when a debtor for a sum above forty 
shillings shall abscond and leave the county, the 
warrant granted as aforesaid shall extend to any 
goods or chattels of said debtor as may be found, 
and such goods or chattels be seized and held in 
custody by the constable for the space of thirty days, 
in which time, if the debtor fail to return and dis- 
charge the debt, the constable shall return the war- 
rant to one of the select men of the company where 
the goods are found, who shall issue orders to the 
constable to sell such a part of said goods as shall 
amount to the sum due. 

"That when the debt exceeds forty shillings, the 
return shall be made to the convention, who shall 
issue orders for sale. 

"XII. That all receivers and collectors of quit 
rents, public and county taxes, do pay the same into 
the hands of the chairman of this Committee, to be 
by them disbursed as the public exigencies may 
require, and that such receivers and collectors pro- 
ceed no further in their office until they be approved 
of by, and have given to this Committee good and 
sufficient security for a faithful return of such 
moneys when collected. 

"XIII. That the Committee be accountable to the 
county for the application of all moneys received 
from such public officers. 

"XIV. That all these officers hold their commis- 
sions during the pleasure of their several con- 
stituents. 



42 The Mecklenburg 

"XV. That this Committee will sustain all dam- 
ages to all or any of their officers thus appointed, 
and thus acting, on account of their obedience and 
conformity to these rules. 

"XVI. That whatever person shall hereafter 
receive a commission from the crown, or attempt to 
exercise any such commission heretofore received, 
shall be deemed an enemy to his country; and upon 
confirmation being made to the captain of the com- 
pany in which he resides, the said company shall 
cause him to be apprehended and conveyed before 
two select men, who, upon proof of the fact, shall 
commit said offender to safe custody, until the next 
sitting of the Committee, who shall deal with him 
as prudence may direct. 

"XVII. That any person refusing to yield obedi- 
ence to the above rules shall be considered equally 
criminal, and liable to the same punishment, as the 
offenders above last mentioned. 

"XVIII. That these Resolves be in full force and 
virtue until instructions from the Provincial Con- 
gress regulating the jurisprudence of the province 
shall provide otherwise, or the legislative body of 
Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pre- 
tensions with respect to America. 

"XIX. That the eight militia companies in this 
county provide themselves with proper arms and 
accoutrements, and hold themselves in readiness to 
execute the commands and directions of the General 
Congress of this province and this Committee. 

"XX. That the Committee appoint Col. Thomas 
Polk and Dr. Joseph Kennedy to purchase 300 



Declaration of Independence 43 

pounds of powder, 600 pounds of lead, 1000 flints, 
for the use of the militia of this county, and deposit 
the same in such place as the Committee may here- 
after direct. 

"Signed by order of the Committee, 

"Eph. Brevard, 
"Clerk of the Committee/' 

These Resolves appeared first in the South Carolina 
Gazette and County Journal on June 13, 1775, and 
on page 48 of his manuscript work Lyman Draper 
says were copied from that paper, in an abbreviated 
form, into the New York Journal of June 29, 1775, 
and Massachusetts Spy of July 12, 1775, and cred- 
ited by those papers to that of Charleston. Then 
these Resolves disappeared and were entirely for- 
gotten for more than sixty years, or until Col. Peter 
Force, of Washington City, found them, and 
announced the fact through the National Intelligencer 
in December, 1838. Nine years later, in 1847, Dr. 
Joseph Johnson discovered this entire series of 
resolutions in the South Carolina Gazette and 
County Journal deposited in the Charleston Library. 
And about the same time Mr. Bancroft, the historian, 
found a copy preserved in the British State Paper 
Office in London. 

Owing to their date they are known as the Thirty- 
first Resolves, but beyond the fact of their having 
been first printed in the Charleston newspaper of 
June 13, 1775, to which publication all copies of 
them can be traced, we shall see, as we proceed, that 
there is not one iota of evidence that these resolu- 



44 The Mecklenburg 

tions were ever considered, much less passed, at 
Charlotte on May 31, 1775, the date of their sup- 
posed adoption. On the contrary, we shall find that 
spectators and delegates to the twentieth of May 
convention testify, and the official utterances of the 
Governor of North Carolina at the time show, that 
resolutions, identical in purpose with the Thirty-first 
Resolves, were passed on the same day, and immedi- 
ately after, the Declaration of Independence was 
made. This of course left nothing to be done by 
the delegates on May 31, 1775. 

Yet, with this abundance of evidence available, 
some of the partizans of Mr. Jefferson not only 
allege that there was never a Declaration of Inde- 
pendence made at Charlotte, but insist upon the 
authenticity of the date of the Thirty-first Resolves. 
This in spite of the fact that in a controversy lasting 
more than three-quarters of a century those partizans 
have never been able to produce one particle of 
evidence, documentary or otherwise, that corrobor- 
ates the date of the Thirty-first Resolves. Whether 
this contention is due to a lack of information on 
the part of those partizans or owing to a hope that 
by their persistence they could persuade historians 
to accept as genuine the Thirty-first Resolves, which 
do not declare independence, in place of the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration that does, and thereby relieve Mr. 
Jefferson of the suspicion of plagiarism when draw- 
ing the National Declaration, we can only conjec- 
ture. But we do know, however, that had those 
would-be-protectors of the ex-President examined 
the proceedings of the Continental Congress of July 



Declaration of Independence 45 

2, 1776, they would have discovered that Richard 
Henry Lee, and not Mr. Jefferson, is responsible 
for the introduction of all of the phrases into the 
National Declaration that are common to it and the 
Mecklenburg document, except "our lives, fortunes 
and sacred honor," and consequently their chief is 
not needing defenders from the charge of plagiarism. 
The Thirty-first Resolves premise as their founda- 
tion that by declaring the American Colonies to be 
in a state of actual rebellion the British Parliament 
has annulled and vacated all provincial laws and 
commissions derived from the King, and has for the 
present "wholly suspended the constitution of each 
particular colony." And the people of Mecklenburg 
County, according to the preamble, in order "to 
provide for the exigencies" thus arising, decide to 
adopt the Thirty-first Resolves for rules of conduct, 
as number 18 of that series has it, "until instructions 
from the Provincial Congress, regulating the juris- 
prudence of the province, shall provide otherwise, or 
the legislative body of Great Britain resign its unjust 
and arbitrary pretensions with respect to America." 
In other words, the Thirty-first Resolves are 
intended to be only a temporary substitute for British 
statutes which have been wholly suspended ; not by 
the men of Mecklenburg, mind you, but by an act of 
the English Parliament. Whereas, in the declara- 
tion it is the citizens of Mecklenburg County, and 
not Parliament, who "do hereby dissolve the political 
bonds which have connected us with the mother 
country." Yet a recent historian, that either 
neglected to read their preamble or failed to com- 



46 The Mecklenburg 

prehend its meaning, boldly asserts "that the 
Resolves of May 31 proclaimed the independence 
of the United Colonies," as if one small county of 
a province could usurp the authority of the Con- 
tinental Congress. To appreciate how misleading 
and absurd is this historian's statement, it is only 
necessary to give the preamble of the Thirty-first 
Resolves a cursory examination. 

Having learned the purpose of the Thirty-first 
Resolves, let us inquire into their origin and ascer- 
tain why they were never adopted in the form and 
on the date in which they are printed in the South 
Carolina Gazette and County Journal of June 13, 

1775. 

When the people of Mecklenburg County realized 
that all British authority in America had been wholly 
suspended "by both Houses of Parliament in Feb- 
ruary, 1775," they held frequent meetings, as the 
preamble of the Thirty-first Resolves declares, "To 
provide in some degree for the exigencies of this 
county in the present alarming period." "At one 
of these meetings, ,, says Martin's History, "it was 
agreed to elect a committee of two delegates from 
each militia company in the county, with ample 
powers to adopt such measures as to them should 
seem best for the colony. These company com- 
mittees were to meet in 'general committee' at 
Charlotte on the nineteenth of May. The forms of 
their proceedings and the measures to be proposed," 
continues Martin, "had been previously agreed upon 
by the men at whose instance the committees were 
assembled, and Dr, Brevard had drawn up the reso-. 



Declaration of Independence 47 

lutions some time before." Those resolutions could 
not have been a Declaration of Independence, for 
the company committees had not been elected with 
the expectation of Mecklenburg County's seceding 
from the mother country, but on the contrary only 
to provide rules and regulations in place of those 
wholly suspended by the British Parliament. 

Everything being arranged, the delegates met in 
Charlotte on the day appointed to consider the 
so-called Thirty-first Resolves. The Rev. Hezekiah 
James Balch, Dr. Brevard and William Kennon, 
according to Martin, had already addressed the 
general committee on the causes which made the 
adoption of those Resolves desirable, when the pro- 
ceedings of the delegates were suddenly interrupted 
by the news of the battle of Lexington in Massachu- 
setts, which had just arrived. "And this intelli- 
gence," to quote Martin's History, "produced the 
most decisive effect, and the large concourse of 
people that had assembled to witness the proceedings 
of the general committee all cried out: 'Let us be 
independent ! Let us declare our independence and 
defend it with our lives and fortunes !' " To this 
end a committee was immediately appointed, "and 
this committee," Martin continues, "was composed 
of the men who had planned the whole proceedings, 
and had already prepared the resolutions which it 
was intended should be submitted to the general 
committee. Dr. Brevard had drawn up the reso- 
lutions some time before and now reported them 
with amendments, etc. They were unanimously 
adopted and subscribed by the delegates." Thus, it 



48 The Mecklenburg 

will be seen, the news of the battle of Lexington 
caused the Thirty-first Resolves, which were "meant 
to be purely provisional, temporary and contingent 
in their force and virtue," to be amended into a 
Declaration of Independence. 

That this is what was done at Charlotte on May 
19-20, 1775, can be demonstrated by comparing the 
declaration with the Thirty-first Resolves, as follows : 
In the preamble of the Resolves the American Colo- 
nies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, 
by both Houses of Parliament. When amended into 
Resolve one of the declaration this reads, "Invasion 
of our rights as attempted by the Parliament of Great 
Britain." Again, in that preamble and in Resolves 
one and three of the Thirty-first, all American laws 
and commissions derived from the King are said to 
be wholly suspended by act of Parliament. As 
amended into Resolve two of the declaration these 
same laws, etc., are abrogated by the general com- 
mittee as follows: "We, the citizens of Mecklen- 
burg County, do hereby dissolve the political bonds 
which have connected us with the mother country," 
etc. Next, Resolves four and five, of the Thirty- 
first, provide for the election of officers "by the 
inhabitants of this county," and declare that the 
powers of those officers shall be exercised "inde- 
pendent of the crown of Great Britain." As 
amended into Resolves four and five of the declara- 
tion, the laws which were in force, prior to the 
arrival of the news from Lexington, remained in 
statu quo, and the county officers, instead of being 
elected by the voters, were transferred from the 



Declaration of Independence 49 

royal to the new government, and "entitled to exer- 
cise the same powers and authorities as heretofore, ,, 
the sudden change of fealty allowing no time for the 
election of officers. This precedent was followed on 
May 20, 1 86 1, when North Carolina seceded from 
the Union, without displacing even a magistrate or a 
country postmaster. 

Additional proof that the Thirty-first Resolves 
and the Declaration of Independence were presented 
to the general committee successively for considera- 
tion on one and the same day is contained in the 
testimony of the following spectators and delegates 
to the convention. For instance, General Joseph 
Graham, who witnessed the proceedings, writes Dr. 
Joseph McKnitt Alexander, son of the old secretary, 
on October 4, 1830: "One among other reasons 
offered" (for calling the convention) "was that the 
King or Ministry had by proclamation or some edict, 
declared the Colonies out of the protection of the 
British Crown," which is substantially the same 
cause, for assembling the delegates, that is given in 
the preamble of the Resolves of the Thirty-first. 
Then John McKnitt Alexander, the secretary of the 
general committee, in describing the proceedings at 
Charlotte on May 19-20, 1775, says that in addition 
to declaring independence, the delegates "also added 
a number of by-laws to regulate their conduct as 
citizens." The identical purpose of the Thirty-first 
Resolves. Again, in the same description Alexander 
declares: "From this delegation" (which made the 
Declaration of Independence) "originated the court 
of inquiry for this county." Which court we find 



50 The Mecklenburg 

provided for in Resolves six to eleven of the Thirty- 
first. Another spectator, John Simeson, writes 
Col. William Polk on January 20, 1820: "The 
same committee" (which declared independence) 
"appointed three men to secure all the military stores 
for the county's use — Thomas Polk, John Phifer, 
and Joseph Kennedy. ,, Which is the sum and sub- 
stance of Resolve twenty of the Thirty-first except 
as to Phifer. The Rev. Humphrey Hunter, also 
present on that day, testifies that, "Those Resolves" 
(the declaration) "having been concurred in, by-laws 
and regulations for the government of a standing 
committee of Public Safety were enacted and 
acknowledged." Again, George Graham, William 
Hutchison, Jonas Clark, and Robert Robinson, four 
eye-witnesses to the proceedings, unite in certifying: 
"That, at the time of the Mecklenburg Declaration, 
a committee of safety for the county were elected, 
who were clothed with civil and military power," 
as is provided for in the Thirty-first Resolves. The 
testimony of all these witnesses is contained in the 
Legislative pamphlet printed in the Appendix. 

Further proof that a Declaration of Independence 
was adopted and county laws passed at one and the 
same session of the general committee is found in 
a contemporary proclamation of the Royal Governor, 
who read the proceedings at Charlotte soon after the 
delegates adjourned. This proclamation, which is 
dated August 8, 1775, and printed in volume ten 
of the North Carolina Colonial Records, recites: 
"Whereas I have also seen a most infamous publica- 
tion in the Cape Fear Mercury, importing to be 



Declaration of Independence 51 

Resolves of a set of people styling themselves a 
committee for the county of Mecklenburg, [first] 
most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of 
the laws, government and constitution of this 
country, and [then] setting up a system of rule and 
regulation repugnant to the laws and subversive to 
His Majesty's government.' , 

Next, Judge Martin, who cites contemporary 
records, magazines, and gazettes as authority for his 
statements, affirms in his history of North Caro- 
lina that, after resolving upon independence, "The 
delegates at Charlotte being empowered to adopt 
such measures as in their opinion would best pro- 
mote the common cause [also] established a variety 
of regulations for managing the concerns of the 
county." The identical purpose of the Resolves of 
the Thirty-first. 

Then Major Garden, the only historian except 
Martin that personally knew members of the general 
committee, in his "Anecdotes of the American Revo- 
lution" makes no mention of a meeting of delegates 
at Charlotte on May 31. This omission would be 
very remarkable if, as claimed by the followers of 
Mr. Jefferson, it was the resolves of that date, and 
not the Mecklenburg Declaration, that were adopted 
in May, 1775. Especially when we remember that 
at the time Garden wrote his book he was a member 
of the Charleston Library, in which was preserved a 
copy of the South Carolina Gazette and County 
Journal containing the Thirty-first Resolves. Gar- 
den could not have failed to read those resolutions 
when searching the newspaper files of that institu- 



52 The Mecklenburg 

tion for historical incidents. So here is a historian 
with the Thirty-first Resolves and members of the 
general committee both accessible when preparing 
his anecdotes, yet he refers to no assembly of dele- 
gates on the thirty-first of May. The inference is 
easy. Garden was informed that the Declaration of 
Independence and the so-called Resolves of the Thir- 
ty-first were parts of one and the same proceedings 
on the 19th and 20th. 

Again, although the South Carolina Gazette and 
County Journal was a tory paper, the editor does not 
comment upon the character of the Thirty-first 
Resolves, but simply inserts them in his journal 
without remark. Showing he was unwilling to 
vouch for either their accuracy or the supposed date 
of adoption. 

Further, it must be universally conceded that 
neither the date nor the context of a newspaper arti- 
cle can be accepted as history when, like the Thirty- 
first Resolves, it can not be corroborated by even one 
witness. For example, the Nezv York Herald of 
May 17, 1865, contains the following dispatch, dated 
Chester, South Carolina, May 12, 1865, at mid- 
night : "To-day a detachment of Kilpatrick's cavalry 
proceeded to Buncombe County, N. C, and arrested 
Governor Vance at the home of his father-in-law," 
whereas the members of the Governor's family and 
his friends then residing in Statesville, Iredell 
County, North Carolina, testify that Vance was 
captured in that town on his birthday, May 13, 1865, 
while at dinner with his wife and children. Shall 
the future historian of North Carolina credit this 



Declaration of Independence 53 

unverified telegram in the Herald, or the citizens of 
Statesville that saw the federal soldiers remove 
Vance from their midst ? 

Through what channel the Thirty-first Resolves 
reached the South Carolina Gazette and County 
Journal is not known. It is probable, however, that 
some one at Charlotte, when writing to Charleston 
on May 31, 1775, enclosed to that paper a copy of 
the resolutions which Martin's History says Dr. 
Brevard had drawn up some time before the meet- 
ing on the nineteenth of May, and, as the resolutions 
were without date, the printer inserted that of the 
letter which accompanied them. 

All contemporary witnesses, without an exception, 
including delegates and spectators and the Colonial 
Governor, who read the proceedings of the conven- 
tion in print, shortly after it adjourned, testify that 
a Declaration of Independence was adopted, and 
laws for the new government enacted by the general 
committee at one and the same meeting. This left 
nothing to be done on May 31, 1775, and no one 
says there was a session of the delegates on that day 
except doubting critics who cannot produce even one 
witness to prove their contention. Yet those doubt- 
ers will insist that it was the Thirty-first Resolves t 
and not the Mecklenburg Declaration, that was 
printed in the Cape Fear Mercury in June, 1775. 
Fortunately for us, the Royal Governor of North 
Carolina, at that time, has left among his colonial 
papers several such minute descriptions of the trans- 
actions of the delegates as published in the Mercury, 
that there is no mistaking the resolutions to which 



54 The Mecklenburg 

he refers. His first mention of the proceedings at 
Charlotte is contained in his address to the Execu- 
tive Council on June 25, 1775, which is printed on 
pages 38 and 39, Volume 10, of the Colonial Records 
of North Carolina. There the Governor, after 
enumerating several disloyal occurrences in the 
province, continues : "And the late most treasonable 
publication of a committee in the county of Meck- 
lenburg, explicitly renouncing obedience to His 
Majesty's government and all lawful authority what- 
soever, are such audacious and dangerous proceed- 
ings, and so directly tending to the dissolution 
of the constitution of this province, that I have 
thought it indispensably my duty to advise with you 
on the measures proper to be taken for the mainte- 
nance of His Majesty's government and the consti- 
tution of this country, thus flagrantly insulted and 
violated." These remarks evidently do not refer to 
the Resolves of the Thirty-first, for we have already 
seen that those resolutions instead of "explicitly 
renouncing obedience to His Majesty's govern- 
ment," positively declare, in number 18 of that 
series, that they are only intended to "be in full force 
and virtue until * * * the legislative body of 
Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary preten- 
sions with respect to America." While the declara- 
tion fulfils the Governor's description of the publica- 
tion in the Cape Fear Mercury as follows, in Resolve 
two, "We the citizens of Mecklenburg County do 
hereby dissolve the political bonds which have con- 
nected us with the mother country, and absolve our- 
selves from all allegiance to the British crown." 



Declaration of Independence 55 

Again, on page 48 of the same volume of those 
records there is a letter of the Governor written to 
Earl Dartmouth live days after the executive address 
and dated June 30, 1775, in which he remarks, "The 
Resolves of the committee of Mecklenburg, which 
your Lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper, 
surpass all the horrid and treasonable publications 
that the inflammatory spirit of this country has yet 
produced." Here again there is no allusion to the 
Resolves of the Thirty-first, for they, in place of 
being treasonable, expressly set forth in their pre- 
amble that their intention is merely "To provide in 
some degree for the exigencies of this county in the 
present alarming period. ,, But the declaration teems 
with treason in Resolve three, where it proclaims 
"That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and 
independent people." 

In the same letter the Colonial Governor tells Earl 
Dartmouth, "A copy of these Resolves, I am 
informed, were sent off by express to the Congress 
at Philadelphia, as soon as they were passed in the 
committee." And as nothing is said of Philadelphia 
in the Thirty-first Resolves, this Provincial Execu- 
tive must have obtained his information as to the 
destination of the proceedings at Charlotte from 
Resolve six of the declaration, which he read in the 
Cape Fear Mercury. It directs, "That a copy of 
these resolutions be transmitted by express to the 
President of the Continental Congress, assembled in 
Philadelphia, to be laid before that body." 

Another and a positive proof that what the King's 
Governor saw in the Cape Fear Mercury in June, 



56 The Mecklenburg 

1775, was the Mecklenburg- Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and not the Thirty-first Resolves, is held in the 
unmistakable words of his contemporary proclama- 
tion. That manifesto, quoted in another connection, 
is printed on pages 144 and 145 of the same volume 
ten of the records, and recites, "Whereas I have also 
seen a most infamous publication in the Cape Fear 
Mercury, importing to be Resolves of a set of people 
styling themselves a committee for the county of 
Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring the entire 
dissolution of the laws, government, and constitu- 
tion of this country." No advocate of the genuine- 
ness of the Thirty-first Resolves is willing to admit 
that they declare "the entire dissolution of the laws, 
government, and constitution of this country," as 
that would be acknowledging them to be a Declara- 
tion of Independence, something which the doubters 
insist was never made at Charlotte, and therefore 
those advocates must confess that the Governor's 
proclamation has no reference to the resolutions of 
May 31, but to the Mecklenburg Declaration, which 
declares in Resolve four, "that the crown of Great 
Britain cannot be considered hereafter as holding any 
rights, privileges, or immunities amongst us." To 
recapitulate : 

The Thirty-first Resolves, drawn by Dr. Brevard 
prior to the arrival of the news of the battle of 
Lexington, were intended as a substitute for laws 
wholly suspended by an act of the British Parlia- 
ment; 

Those in the Cape Fear Mercury were prepared 
in consequence of the conflict at Lexington, refer to 



Declaration of Independence 57 

that battle in their context, and declare the laws 
abrogated by the citizens of Mecklenburg County; 

The Thirty-first Resolves are limited as to time 
and power; 

Those in the Cape Fear Mercury are treasonable 
and permanent in their action ; 

"The Thirty-first Resolves," declares the Rev. 
Dr. Welling, "are meant to be purely provisional, 
temporary, and contingent in their force and virtue" ; 

Those in the Cape Fear Mercury, according to 
the Royal Governor, proclaim "the entire dissolution 
of the laws, government, and constitution of this 
country" ; 

The Thirty-first Resolves "do not contemplate 
anvthing like a formal or definitive separation from 
Great Britain" ; 

While those in the Cape Fear Mercury are a 
Declaration of Independence. 

The Colonial Records contain other references of 
the Royal Governor of North Carolina to the action 
of "the committee for the county of Mecklenburg," 
but we deem those cited sufficient to indicate which 
series of resolutions appeared in the Cape Fear 
Mercury. 

Now that we know the Mecklenburg Declaration 
of Independence was published in the Cape Fear 
Mercury as early as June, 1775, let us inquire what 
became of that journal and ascertain why it cannot 
be produced. 

As stated in his letter, the Provincial Governor of 
North Carolina transmitted this copy of the Mercury 



58 The Mecklenburg 

to Earl Dartmouth on June 30, 1775, and his Lord- 
ship filed it in the British State Paper Office in 
London. There the paper remained until 1837, or 
until the Mecklenburg controversy was well under 
way, and then disappeared under the following- 
circumstances : 

In March, 1837, the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, 
D. D., LL. D., printed a review of "Tucker's Life of 
Jefferson" in the New York Review for that month. 
And in his criticism Dr. Hawks announced that the 
Mecklenburg Declaration was first published in the 
Cape Fear Mercury in June, 1775, which paper was 
still preserved in the Colonial Archives in England. 
And, among other things, the distinguished reviewer 
charged Mr. Jefferson with having plagiarised 
several of the Mecklenburg phrases when drawing 
the National Declaration. This accusation so 
greatly incensed the adherents of the venerable ex- 
President that Lyman Draper, in his manuscript, 
says the Cape Fear Mercury containing the proceed- 
ings at Charlotte was loaned to Hon. Andrew 
Stevenson, a friend of Mr. Jefferson, and never 
returned. 

Mr. Stevenson, according to Appleton's Cyclopedia 
of American Biography, was a contemporary of 
Thomas Jefferson, and no doubt his personal friend. 
For he was born in Virginia in 1784, belonged to 
the same Democratic party, and was a prominent 
member of the State Legislature and of Congress 
for twenty years during the latter part of Mr. 
Jefferson's life, and in 1836 became Minister to 
England. 



Declaration of Independence 59 

What Mr. Stevenson wanted with the Cape Fear 
Mercury or what he did with it, we do not know, 
as he neither published its contents, nor, so far as 
we can discover, informed any one that he had seen 
that paper. All of which seems very remarkable 
when we are told, in the same manuscript of Lyman 
Draper, that Jared Sparks, the historian, visited 
London in search of that copy of the Mercury in 
1840-41, and of course must have made the acquaint- 
ance of Mr. Stevenson, who was at the time this 
government's representative at the Court of St. 
James. 

In 1838, the year after Mr. Stevenson borrowed 
the Cape Fear Mercury, Col. Peter Force, remem- 
ber, found the Thirty-first Resolves, which discovery 
intensified the controversy as to the genu- 
ineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration. This 
renewed discussion was continued in the press of 
the country, by citizens of Virginia and others, for 
some years, yet nowhere do we find that Mr. 
Stevenson ever participated in the debate, although, 
with the Cape Fear Mercury in his possession, he 
could have settled the controversy for all time. Mr. 
Stevenson, on his return to America, became rector 
of the University of Virginia, and died near there 
in 1857, having lived twenty years after finding the 
Cape Fear Mercury, without divulging its contents. 

The loss of the Cape Fear Mercury from the 
British State Paper Office in London is accounted 
for on page 54 of Draper's manuscript as follows : 
"A note in pencil contained this memorandum, 
'Taken out by Mr. Turner for Mr. Stevenson, 



60 The Mecklenburg 

August 15, 1837/ It was evidently never returned. 
The person referred to, for whose use it had been 
taken, was Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, then 
Minister to the Court of St. James. Upon Colonel 
Wheeler's return to this country he applied to Hon. 
J. W. Stevenson of Kentucky, son of the deceased 
Minister to England, concerning the missing copy of 
the Cape Fear Mercury, and the answer was, 
though the missing copy could not be found, dis- 
patches and other memoranda among the deceased 
Minister's papers indicates that the copy had once 
been in his possession." 

That Mr. Stevenson was suspected of more than 
a passing interest in the Mecklenburg controversy, 
while Minister to the Court of St. James, is ascer- 
tained from the following paragraph in "Memorials 
of North Carolina," published in 1838, while Mr. 
Stevenson was still a resident of London. The 
author, J. Seawell Jones, who has evidently heard of 
the disappearance of the Cape Fear Mercury from 
the British Archives in August, 1837, gives way to 
his vexation thus : "It has been intimated to me 
by a friend that the present Envoy Extraordinary 
of the Government of the United States near the 
throne of England, had been entrusted with a com- 
mission to explore the archives of the Colonial Office, 
for evidence against the Mecklenburg Declaration. 
Under whose superintendence and advice, this 
exploring expedition was got up, it does not behoove 
me to say, but I can certainly wish its worthy com- 
mander whatever success he may deserve. He may 
depend upon his deserts being fairly and thoroughly 



Declaration of Independence 61 

canvassed whenever the fruits of his expedition shall 
be disclosed to the public." Thus the loss of the 
Cape Fear Mercury raises a presumption against the 
parties who obtained it and withheld it from their 
opponents and the public. 

Among- other arguments to disprove the authen- 
ticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration it is customary 
for the doubters to cite the time of Captain Jack's 
arrival in Salisbury as a "settler." And on page 
227 of the Magazine of American History for 
March, 1889, the Rev. J. C. Welling, D. D., sup- 
posing Captain Jack, the bearer of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration to the Continental Congress for ratifica- 
tion, to have left Charlotte immediately upon the 
adjournment of the delegates, remarks : "An express 
rider carrying to Philadelphia a copy of important 
proceedings had at a meeting in Charlotte on May 
20, and arriving in Salisbury, forty miles from 
Charlotte, early in the month of June, would move 
the 'inextinguishable laughter of the gods' in 
Homer." Whereas the manner in which this 
scholarly writer ignores adverse testimony is 
enough to fell those deities with nervous prostration. 
Had he but examined the statement of John McKnitt 
Alexander, the secretary of the convention, printed 
in the Legislative Pamphlet, a copy of which can be 
found in the Appendix, Dr. Welling would have 
ascertained that Jack, instead of leaving Charlotte 
on May 20, was not engaged as messenger until 
several days after that date. For Alexander, after 
describing the adoption of the declaration, says : 
"In a few days, a deputation of said delegation con- 



62 The Mecklenburg 

vened, when Capt. James Jack, of Charlotte, was 
deputed as express to the Congress at Philadelphia," 
etc. And in the same pamphlet Alexander is cor- 
roborated by George Graham, William Hutchison, 
Jonas Clark, and Robert Robinson, four citizens of 
Mecklenburg County, and all eye-witnesses to the 
proceedings of the delegates. As after relating the 
circumstances of the declaration, these men unite in 
testifying that, "We do further certify and declare 
that in a few days after the delegates adjourned, 
Capt. James Jack, of the town of Charlotte, was 
engaged to carry the Resolves to the President of 
the Congress, and to our representatives — one copy 
each ; and that his expenses were paid by a voluntary 
subscription." Thus, upon the testimony of five 
contemporary witnesses, it appears that Jack was not 
selected as messenger to Congress until some days 
after the declaration was adopted, and was then 
detained, we do not know how much longer, until 
a voluntary subscription could be raised in the small 
village of Charlotte and the sparsely settled county 
of Mecklenburg, to defray his expenses of the 
journey. And that no doubt is why Jack declares 
in his affidavit, also printed in the Legislative 
pamphlet, he did not set out till "the following 
month." 

Having traced the controversy from Mr. Jeffer- 
son's letter, dated July 9, 1819, repudiating the 
Mecklenburg Declaration, to the loss of the Cape 
Fear Mercury from the British Archives, on August 
J 5> I ^37> we will now turn our attention to the 
North Carolina Provincial Congress, upon the pro- 



Declaration of Independence 63 

ceedings of which the doubters chiefly rely to dis- 
credit the Charlotte convention of May 19-20, 1775. 

This Provincial Assembly met at Hillsborough 
on August 20, 1775, and among its delegates were 
four signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration. And 
the would-be defenders of Mr. Jefferson, from sup- 
posed plagiarism, contend that the proceedings of 
this Hillsborough Congress were so thoroughly 
loyal to King George the Third, that it was not only 
inconsistent, but utterly impossible, for men that 
had subscribed the twentieth of May resolutions to 
be members of this body. Both on account of the 
oath or "test" required for membership, and the 
character of the proceedings of the delegates. And, 
therefore, argue these would-be defenders, as those 
four men of Mecklenburg did serve as members of 
this Provincial association, there never could have 
been a Declaration of Independence made at Char- 
lotte. These repudiators, forgetting that their argu- 
ment applies with equal force to the so-called 
Thirty-first Resolves, which the doubters contend 
were the only resolutions ever adopted by Mecklen- 
burg County, as those same Resolves direct, in rule 
four, that the affairs of the community shall be 
conducted "independent of the crown of Great 
Britain." 

After observing how much in error were the 
positive assertions of the Jefferson partizans, as to 
which series of resolutions appeared in the Cape 
Fear Mercury in June, 1775, we are not willing to 



64 The Mecklenburg 

accept, without examination, thei" "hold declarations 
as to the loyal sentiment pervading the test oath and 
proceedings of this Hillsborough Congress. 

A review of the situation shows that in 1775 
rebellion was so rife in North Carolina that within 
one week after Mecklenburg County declared itself 
independent of Great Britain, Abner Nash, at the 
head of a committee of his neighbors, frightened 
the King's Governor from New Berne, the seat of 
government, His Excellency taking refuge in Fort 
Johnston on the Cape Fear River, from whence he 
was driven, sixty days later, on board the British 
gunboat Crusier, by Col. John Ashe, who, with a 
large body of men, destroyed the fort and carried 
away the guns. "Fifty days after the adoption of 
the Mecklenburg Declaration," says the editor of 
the Colonial Records of North Carolina, "a public 
call was made for the election of delegates to this 
Hillsborough Provincial Congress," upon which the 
doubters so firmly rely to discredit the Mecklenburg 
Declaration. And as affairs of the last importance 
were to be submitted to it, a large representation of 
the people was said to be desirable. "In ninety days 
from that declaration," says the same editor, "in 
spite of a furious proclamation from the Royal 
Governor, issued from the man-of-war Crusier, 
forbidding the people to elect delegates to this same 
Hillsborough Congress, and offering a reward for 
the arrest and delivery of the leaders of the move- 
ment to the British authorities, elections were held 
throughout the entire province, delegates were duly 
chosen, and the congress met in open session at the 



Declaration of Independence 65 

time and place appointed. Everybody," continues 
the editor of the records, "understood the nature of 
the affairs to be submitted to the convention and 
appreciated their vital importance. And, as desired, 
an unprecedentedly large number of delegates were 
selected to consider them. Two hundred and four- 
teen delegates were elected in all, and one hundred 
and eighty-four of them were present. Every one 
of the thirty-five counties, into which the province 
was then divided, was represented, and every 
borough town. The congress was in session just 
twenty days and busy enough." Its proceedings 
are recorded on pages 164 to 220, inclusive, of 
Volume 10 of the Colonial Records of North 
Carolina. 

In addition to the four signers of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration, there were among the delegates chosen, 
Cornelius Harnett, Robert Howe, Samuel Ashe, and 
Abner Nash, all of whom, according to page 98, 
Volume 10 of the Colonial Records, the King's 
Governor, in a letter dated July 16, 177$, one month 
previous to the assembling of this Provincial Con- 
gress, writes Earl Dartmouth advising the British 
authorities to "proscribe, as persons who have 
marked themselves out as proper subjects for such 
distinction in this colony, by their unremitting labors 
to promote sedition and rebellion here, from the 
beginning of the discontents in America, to this 
time, that they stand foremost among the patrons of 
revolt and anarchy." Who would expect to find 
loyalty to King George the Third in a Provincial 
Congress, composed of such delegates, elected under 



66 The Mecklenburg 

such circumstances? And to show how mistaken 
the doubters are in their estimate of that convention, 
we will now review its proceedings and ascertain 
whether its transactions were enacted for or against 
the interests of Great Britain. 

The congress met on Sunday, August 20, 1775, 
and for lack of a quorum adjourned to the following 
day. Then Samuel Johnston, who had issued the 
call for what the Governor terms this "illegal 
assembly," was chosen moderator, and a resolution 
immediately adopted declaring that those of the 
Regulators who had fought the King's army at the 
battle of Alamance, four years before, and still 
remained unpardoned, "ought to be protected from 
every attempt to punish them by any means what- 
ever, and that this congress will to their utmost 
protect them from any injury to their persons or 
property, which may be attempted on the pretense 
of punishing the said late insurrection or anything 
in consequence thereof." A sentiment, no doubt, 
universal among the signers of the Mecklenburg 
Declaration. 

On the second day of the session a committee 
was appointed to inquire into the conduct of John 
Coulson, who had been "charged with dangerous 
practices against the liberties of America." But on 
no day do we find in the proceedings was any 
investigation made by this Provincial Congress as 
to the "dangerous practices" against the rights of 
Great Britain. On the third day the following oath, 
known as the "test" of loyalty to America, was 
adopted and subscribed by the delegates : 



Declaration of Independence 67 

"We, the subscribers, professing our allegiance to 
the King, and acknowledging the constitutional 
executive power of government, do solemnly pro- 
fess, testify and declare that we do absolutely 
believe that neither the Parliament of Great Britain, 
nor any member or constituent branch thereof, have 
a right to impose taxes upon these colonies to 
regulate the internal police thereof; and that all 
attempts, by fraud or force, to establish and exercise 
such claims and powers, are violations of the peace 
and security of the people, and ought to be resisted 
to the utmost. 

"And that the people of this province, singly and 
collectively, are bound by the acts and resolutions of 
the Continental and Provincial Congresses, because 
in both they are freely represented by persons chosen 
by themselves; and we do solemnly and sincerely 
promise and engage, under the sanction of virtue, 
honor and the sacred love of liberty, and our country, 
to maintain and support all and every the acts, reso- 
lutions and regulations, of the said Continental and 
Provincial Congresses, to the utmost of our powers 
and abilities. In testimony whereof, we have hereto 
set our hands this 23d of August, 1775." 

Such is the test or oath that the Jefferson followers 
claim destroys all possibility to there having been a 
Declaration of Independence at Charlotte, and go so 
far as to declare it infamous, if Mecklenburg had 
made the declaration in question, that her delegates 
should have subscribed this test. 

In a number of monographs against the authen- 
ticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration the first para- 



68 The Mecklenburg 

graph only of this test is cited as evidence to that 
effect, while the writers shout, with their exclama- 
tion marks, "no signer of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion could subscribe to that!" Whereas, had those 
doubters been frank enough to print the entire test, 
their readers would have seen that no loyal son of 
Great Britain could take that oath. And, as the 
last paragraph of the test, like the codicil to a will, 
annulled all conflicting clauses, the delegates, as 
their proceedings prove, considered themselves 
bound only by that. Again, had the members of 
this North Carolina Provincial Congress deemed 
themselves loyal subjects of England, instead of 
requiring a test as a qualification for a seat in that 
assembly, only the usual oath, administered to all 
Bri'tish subjects when inducted into office, would 
have been exacted of the delegates. But, on the 
contrary, this test was considered so essential, by 
this Hillsborough Congress, that it was required of 
all officials under that congress, without distinction 
of person in this and the succeeding body of April 
4, 1776. Even after the passage of the famous 
resolutions, on April 12, 1776, instructing the 
delegates from North Carolina in the Continental 
Congress to vote for American independence, we 
read in the journal of April 15, 1776, that "William 
Hooper and John Penn, Esqs., delegates of the 
Continental Congress, and members of this House, 
appeared, subscribed the test, and took their seats." 
And it may be a matter of surprise to the scrupulous 
of this late day, that Messrs. Hooper and Penn, good 
Episcopalians, should thus unnecessarily involve 



Declaration of Independence 69 

their consciences by taking this test of loyalty to 
the King, if such it was, after they had been 
instructed to vote for independence, and then, within 
three months, giving their votes and subscriptions 
to the National Declaration. But thus it appears on 
record. 

Saving the first two lines, probably thrown in for 
the sake of the scrupulous or disaffected members 
of the Provincial Congress, this test contains an 
emphatic denial of all authority of Parliament over 
the Colonies. And, declaring that authority should 
be resisted to the utmost, solemnly engages or agrees 
to maintain and support only all and every the acts, 
regulations, and resolutions of the Continental and 
Provincial Congresses. 

The journal of this Hillsborough Congress has 
always been regarded by the people of North Caro- 
lina as a noble monument of the patriotism and 
wisdom of the men who were its members. It has 
been very largely extracted from by Judge Martin, 
in his history of the State, and he discovered nothing 
in the test irreconcilable with the Mecklenburg 
Declaration, which document he most emphatically 
affirms. And an incontrovertible proof that the test 
was regarded as an oath of disloyalty to Great 
Britain, by both British and American authorities, 
is recorded on pages 382 and 383, Volume II of 
Martin's History, where the author describes a truce 
conducted between a Continental and a British com- 
mander near Cross Creeks, now Fayetteville, North 
Carolina, in February, 1776. It reads: * 'General 
McDonald marched at first towards Colonel Moore, 



70 The Mecklenburg 

and halted, at some distance from his camp ; he sent 
an officer, charged with a letter to the Colonel, 
bewailing the difficulty of his situation, and pressed, 
by his duty to the sovereign, to the fatal necessity 
of shedding blood, while led by the principles of 
humanity he wished the event might be prevented, 
by the submission of the Colonel and his party to 
the constitution and laws of their country; he 
enclosed a copy of the governor's proclamation and 
his own manifesto, expressing the hope, that the 
Colonel would coolly, impartially, and deliberately 
weigh their contents, and pay them that regard that 
they justly merited, from every friend of the human 
species ; he proffered to him, his officers and men in 
the King's name, a free pardon and indemnity for 
all past transgressions, on their laying down their 
arms and taking the oath of allegiance, and con- 
cluded, that unless these terms were accepted, he 
must consider them as traitors to the constitution, 
and take the necessary steps to conquer and subdue 
them. 

"Desirous of gaining time, Colonel Moore (who 
with his men had been enlisted by this North Caro- 
lina Provincial Congress) amused the General, till 
he could no longer temporize; he then replied that 
his followers and he were engaged in a noble cause, 
the most glorious and honorable in the world, the 
defense of the rights of mankind; they needed no 
pardon. In return for the Governor's proclamation, 
he enclosed a copy of the test required by the late 
Provincial Congress, to be subscribed by every 
officer in the province, invited him to subscribe and 



Declaration of Independence 71 

offer it for the signature of his officers, and on their 
doing so and laying down their arms, he promised 
to receive them as brothers; but concluded that in 
case of their refusal, the General and his men could 
only expect that treatment with which he had been 
pleased to threaten him and his followers." 

At this stage of the proceedings American rein- 
forcements arrived, and in a few days the General 
with the oath of allegiance was the prisoner of the 
Colonel with the test. Thus we have the test 
and the oath of allegiance contrasted in such 
a way that there is no mistaking their difference, 
even by a doubter of the Mecklenburg Declaration of 
Independence. 

Having seen how the men that subscribed it, and 
the British Government understood the test, let us 
return to the proceedings of the Provincial Congress 
at Hillsborough that made it. 

On the fourth day of the session, instead of 
inviting the King's Governor to return to the 
Capitol, and resume the executive duties, from 
which he had been chased by some of these very 
delegates, the congress created a committee to 
report a plan of Provincial Government rendered 
necessary, it was said, by "His Excellency the 
Governor refusing to exercise the functions of the 
office, by leaving the province and retiring on board 
a man-of-war, without any threats or violence to 
compel him to such a measure." As remarked by 
the editor of the Colonial Records, "The impudence 
of this is simply sublime." 



72 The Mecklenburg 

On the fifth day the congress took into considera- 
tion the proclamation of the Governor, issued from 
the sloop-of-war Critsier, in the Cape Fear River, 
where His Excellency had taken refuge when driven 
from New Berne and Fort Johnston. In this mani- 
festo the election of delegates to this Hillsborough 
assembly had been forbidden as follows : "I do 
hereby advise, forewarn and exhort all His Majesty's 
subjects within this province, to forbear making any 
choice of delegates to represent them in the intended 
convention at Hillsborough, as they would avoid 
the guilt of giving sanction to an illegal assembly 
acting upon principles subversive of the happy con- 
stitution of this country, and that they do by every 
means in their power oppose that dangerous and 
unconstitutional assembly and resist its baneful 
influence." And in order to show their contempt 
for this British Governor, the delegates directed his 
proclamation to "be burned by the common hang- 
man." 

On August 28, 1775, tne ninth day of the session, 
the Committee of Intelligence reported the case of 
Dunn and Boote, two loyal attorneys residing in 
Salisbury that had undertaken to detain Captain Jack, 
the bearer of the Mecklenburg Declaration, when he 
passed through that town on his way to Philadel- 
phia. When the news of the attempt of these law- 
yers upon Jack reached Charlotte, shortly thereafter, 
the Committee of Safety, at the head of Mecklen- 
burg's new government, sent a posse to Salisbury 
and arrested Dunn and Boote. The prisoners were 
brought before the Committee of Safety at Char- 



Declaration of Independence 73 

lotte, and upon trial and conviction, there being no 
suitable prison nearer, were taken to Charleston, 
South Carolina, and confined to jail. At the time of 
the seizure Dunn was attorney for the crown at 
Rowan County court. In the hope of procuring 
their release, the wives of Dunn and Boote had pre- 
sented a petition to this North Carolina Provincial 
Congress. But the delegates, influenced, no doubt, 
by the Mecklenburg members, upon investigation, 
decided that imprisonment was "necessary and justi- 
fiable" and refused to liberate them. 

On September ist it was resolved that the colony be 
immediately put in a state of defense and that one 
thousand regular troops be raised to fight the King's 
army. On the second of the month William Hooper, 
Richard Caswell, and Joseph Hewes were chosen to 
represent North Carolina in the Continental Con- 
gress, which body, in the language of the Colonial 
Governor, was "another illegal assembly." 

On September 4th the King's Governor, through 
his secretary, Mr. Biggleston, sought permission 
from this Provincial Congress to remove his house- 
hold effects from New Berne to his place of refuge on 
board the Crusier, and send his coach and horses to 
the home of Farquard Campbell, a member of the 
congress. And the delegates resolved : "That if Mr. 
Biggleston should think proper to remove on board 
the man-of-war all of the Governor's effects, as well 
as his coach and horses * * * this congress is 
ever ready to give them * * * every safeguard 
and security ; but as Mr. Farquard Campbell, a mem- 
ber of this congress, has expressed a sincere desire 



74 The Mecklenburg 

that the coach and horses should not be sent to his 
house in Cumberland, and is amazed that such a pro- 
posal should have been made without his approbation 
or privity, they conceive that they can by no means 
suffer the coach and horses to be removed to Cum- 
berland County." And then further resolved : "That 
Farquard Campbell, Esq., hath, in the opinion of this 
congress, conducted himself as an honest member of 
society and a friend to the American cause ; and that 
any confidential expressions that have been dropped 
by Governor Martin or any of his friends with 
respect to any reliance they may have upon the 
services of the said Farquard Campbell against the 
American cause, have been without any encourage- 
ment from the said Farquard Campbell, but have 
been made use of in order to bring his character into 
distrust and lessen the esteem, which, for his faithful 
services, he deserves from the inhabitants of this 
province." What queer resolutions and proceedings 
these would be if, as claimed by the Jefferson parti- 
zans, the delegates, in order to become members of 
this Provincial Congress, had taken an oath that was 
a test of loyalty to British authority? 

On Friday, September 8, the delegates, after 
spending two weeks in declaring that they and their 
constituents would obey only the acts and regula- 
tions of the Provincial and Continental Congresses, 
would protect the survivors of the battle of Ala- 
mance from punishment by Great Britain, after try- 
ing John Coulson for "dangerous practices against 
the liberties of America," appointing a committee to 
report a plan of government subversive of British 



Declaration of Indepekdence 75 

authority, burning His Excellency's proclamation by 
the common hangman, raising troops to fight the 
royal army and spending their time in adopting 
many other measures inimical to the King and Par- 
liament, adopted an address to the inhabitants of the 
British Empire containing this remarkable para- 
graph : "We have been told that independence is our 
object; that we seek to shake off all connection with 
the parent State. Cruel suggestion ! Do not all our 
professions, all our actions uniformly contradict 
this ? We again declare and we invoke that Almighty 
Being who searches the recesses of the human heart 
and knows our most secret intentions, that it is our 
most earnest wish and prayer to be restored, with the 
other united Colonies, to the state in which we and 
they were placed before the year 1763." 

This address, to the inhabitants of the British 
Empire, appears to have had about the same effect 
upon the Provincial Congress that a sermon does on 
the average congregation — all drop their sins, listen 
attentively to the preacher, approve of all he says, 
sing the long metre doxology with a gusto, and 
move out to resume their wickedness where they left 
off Saturday night. And, like many a sermon, the 
effect of this address was not felt beyond the walls 
within which it was uttered, and there is no evidence 
that it was ever transmitted to the people for whom it 
was made. It was probably prepared by some of those 
very delegates who, after chasing the Governor away, 
resolved in this Hillsborough convention that His 
Excellency the Governor had left the Province and 



76 The Mecklenburg 

retired on board a man-of-war "without any threats 
or violence to compel him to such a measure." Evi- 
dently there were wags in this congress. 

On the next day, Saturday, September 9, after 
having been delivered of their "heartfelt effusions," 
and feeling better for the accouchment, the delegates, 
like the aforesaid congregation, returned to their 
sedition and rebellion, and organized a war estab- 
lishment, as "a sincere earnest of our present and 
future intention" to fight the army of His Majesty 
King George the Third, notwithstanding "all our 
professions, all our actions uniformly contradict 
this." And, to insure success, not only "invoked that 
Almighty Being, who searches the recesses of the 
human heart and knows our secret intentions," but 
also appointed Thomas Polk, Adam Alexander, John 
Phifer, and John Davidson, four signers of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, among 
other field officers. 

In spite of this address to the inhabitants of the 
British Empire, the remainder of Saturday and the 
ensuing Sunday, the last two days of the session, as 
the journal shows, were spent by these same delegates 
in entirely severing North Carolina from the mother 
country and adopting a constitution for the adminis- 
tration of the executive, legislative, and the judicial 
affairs of the province, independent of the crown of 
Great Britain. And, as the editor of the Colonial 
Records in this connection remarks : "The die was 
now cast, and North Carolina at last a self-govern- 
ing commonwealth, whose rights and liberties and 
privileges her people were ready to defend with their 



Declaration of Independence 77 

fortunes and lives, and all this by the most deliberate, 
well-considered action on the part of that same peo- 
ple, after a campaign of forty days, in which dele- 
gates, in numbers without a parallel then or since, 
were elected, nobody being taken by surprise, but 
everybody knowing that the assembly of men thus 
elected would bring matters to a crisis. And this was 
done full eight months before the Continental Con- 
gress advised the Colonies to change the form of their 
governments. It is worthy of note, too, that both 
New Hampshire and Massachusetts, following the 
example of North Carolina, justified the changes 
they made at subsequent periods by reason of the 
flight of their Governors. The more the action of 
this great Hillsborough Congress is studied, and the 
events immediately preceding, the more wonderful 
seems the deliberate, well-considered resolute bold- 
ness of our ancestors." 

The signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration, in 
this Hillsborough convention, could have desired 
nothing better than was planned and executed by this 
Provincial Congress. 

They might well have said to their people at home, 
"Our strength is to sit still." The Congress was 
effecting all they desired, and at its spring session 
the men of Mecklenburg had the great satisfaction to 
see this congress nobly resolve on American inde- 
pendence, as their county had done on May 19-20, 
1775, before the representatives of any other colony 
had taken this decisive step. Congress met at Hali- 
fax on April 4, 1776, and, according to its journal, 
"On the 8th it was resolved, that Mr. Harnett, Mr. 



78 The Mecklenburg 

Allen Jones, Mr. Burke, Mr. Nash, Mr. Kinchen, 
Mr. Person, and Mr. Thomas Jones be a select com- 
mittee to take into consideration the usurpations and 
violences attempted and committed by the King and 
Parliament of Great Britain against America, and 
the further measures to be taken for frustrating the 
same, and for the better defense of this Province." 
On April 12, 1776, the select committee reported : "It 
appears to your committee that pursuant to the plan 
concerted by the British Ministry for the subjuga- 
tion of America, the King and Parliament of Great 
Britain have usurped a power over the persons and 
properties of the people unlimited and uncontrolled ; 
and disregarding their humble petition for peace, 
liberty and safety, have made divers legislative acts 
denouncing war, famine and every species of 
calamity against the continent in general. The Brit- 
ish fleets and armies have been and still are daily 
employed in destroying the people, and committing 
the most horrid devastations on the country. The 
Governors in different colonies have declared protec- 
tion to slaves who should imbrue their hands in the 
blood of their masters. That the ships belonging to 
America are declared prizes of war, and many of 
them have been violently seized and confiscated. In 
consequence of all which multitudes of the people 
have been destroyed, or from easy circumstances 
reduced to the most lamentable distress. And 
whereas, the moderation hitherto manifested by the 
united colonies, and their sincere desire to be recon- 
ciled to the mother country on constitutional princi- 
ples, have procured no mitigation of the aforesaid 



Declaration of Independence 79 

wrongs and usurpations, and no hopes remain of 
obtaining redress by these means alone, which have 
been hitherto tried, your committee are of opinion the 
House should enter into the following resolve, to 
wit: 

"Resolved, That the delegates from this colony in 
the Continental Congress be empowered to concur 
with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring 
Independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserv- 
ing to the colony the sole and exclusive right of 
forming a constitution and laws for this colony, and 
of appointing delegates from time to time (under the 
direction of a general representation thereof) to 
meet the delegates of the other colonies for such 
purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out. 

"The congress taking the same into consideration 
unanimously concurred therewith." 

Thus we see, in practical results, the Hillsborough 
Provincial Congress was the proper association in 
which men who had signed the Mecklenburg Decla- 
ration of Independence should serve their country. 

This completes cur investigations as to the adop- 
tion and loss of the Mecklenburg Declaration of 
Independence, and the controversy regarding its 
genuineness. From a review of the evidence we 
have learned that on May 20, 1775, the citizens of 
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, declared them- 
selves independent of the crown of Great Britain. 
That the original copy of the resolutions was burned 
with John McKnitt Alexander's residence in the 
year 1800. In the same year Alexander made a 
transcript of that declaration from memory, which 



80 The Mecklenburg 

is known among historians as the Davie copy. In 
1819, after the death of the old secretary, his son 
printed an account of the Mecklenburg convention in 
the Raleigh Register. This publication fell into the 
hands of Thomas Jefferson, who denied its authen- 
ticity, and caused a controversy between his friends 
and those of Alexander, the former contending 
that John McKnitt Alexander had confused the 
Mecklenburg and Philadelphia resolutions. Then 
Alexander's followers, instead of trying to show 
that there had been a Declaration of Independence 
at Charlotte, undertook to prove the verbal accuracy 
of the Davie copy, although Alexander himself had 
certified on its back that the Davie paper was only 
"fundamentally correct." And with the Jefferson 
champions alleging that the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion was never heard of previous to the Raleigh pub- 
lication in 1 8 19, and the Alexander defenders insist- 
ing upon the accuracy of the memory copy, the 
controversy was kept up until 1838, when the Thir- 
ty-first Resolves were discovered. Then the doubters 
shouted, with great glee, that they had found what 
Alexander was trying to remember when he wrote 
the resolutions which he presented to General Davie. 
But as the Jefferson people were unable to corroborate 
the date of the Thirty-first Resolves, the Alexander 
men stood their ground. In the mean time, Martin's 
History of North Carolina, containing a minute 
description of what had been done at Charlotte, 
appeared ; but as the controversy had then been rag- 
ing ten years, Martin's narrative was not accepted. 



Declaration of Independence 81 

Some years later Martin's preface was examined, 
and showed that although the book was not printed 
until 1829, it had in reality been written 1791 to 
1809, and finished at least ten years before Mr. Jef- 
ferson precipitated the declaration controversy. And 
a further investigation of Martin's opportunities for 
ascertaining the truth of what he wrote developed 
the fact that with the exception of Major Garden, 
who, in "Anecdotes of the American Revolution," 
sustains him, Martin is the only historian who per- 
sonally knew eye-witnesses and participants in the 
Mecklenburg convention, and had access to the 
Cape Fear Mercury that contained the proceedings 
of the delegates. And Martin is discredited only by 
historians writing forty and fifty years after the 
adoption of the declaration, without any personal 
knowledge of the events Martin describes. 

Our investigations also reveal the fact that Judge 
Martin's statements are confirmed by the "Mecklen- 
burg Censor" of March 18, 1777, which says the 
delegates at Charlotte, "the very first, their independ- 
ence did declare," and sustained by deeds on file in 
the county court-house dating the time of their 
execution from the Mecklenburg or "our independ- 
ence." Martin's version of what was done in May, 
1775, i s a l so upheld by Major John Davidson, a 
signer, whose son, born May 20, 1787, was called by 
his father My Independence Boy, in honor of the dec- 
laration. 

If further evidence were needed to corroborate 
Martin it can be found in the Governor's address to 



82 The Mecklenburg 

his executive council on June 25, 1775, where he 
declares the citizens of Mecklenburg County were 
guilty of "explicitly renouncing obedience to His 
Majesty's government and all lawful authority what- 
soever." Also where that same Governor recites in 
a proclamation on August 8, 1775, that he has seen 
in the Cape Fear Mercury resolutions, of a commit- 
tee for the county of Mecklenburg, "declaring the 
entire dissolution of the laws, government and con- 
stitution of this country." And last, James Wallis, a 
school boy at Sugar Creek Academy, in his declama- 
tion on June 1, 1809, reciting the circumstances of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration, agrees with Martin as to 
the character of the proceedings on May 19-20, 1775. 
Thus we find the Mecklenburg resolutions referred to 
as a Declaration of Independence from the time of 
their passage in 1775 until 18 19, when Mr. Jefferson 
undertook to invalidate them. All contemporary 
witnesses, without an exception, testify that the 
result of the Mecklenburg convention was a Decla- 
ration of Independence, and only those writers that 
appear on the scene a half century after the event 
declare to the contrary. 

Our research further showed that although the 
Jefferson partizans persistently contend for the 
authenticity of the Thirty-first Resolves, apparently 
to protect that statesman from supposed plagiarism, 
Richard Henry Lee was the author of the phrases 
common to both declarations. We also discovered 
that the doubters, while denying the truth of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration, have never been able to 
produce one witness testifying to the genuineness of 



Declaration of Independence 83 

the Resolves of May 31, as printed in the South Car- 
olina Gazette and County Journal of June 13, 1775* 
On the contrary, our examination disclosed the fact 
that spectators and delegates, the Royal Governor 
and Martin's History, one and all, declare that 
resolves embracing the same powers as those of 
the Thirty-first were enacted by the delegates im- 
mediately after adopting the declaration, and this 
left nothing to be done by the convention on the 
last day of May. We also learned what became 
of the Cape Fear Mercury containing the pro- 
ceedings of the delegates, and that the test was 
not an oath of allegiance to Great Britain, but a 
test of loyalty to America. And that a signer of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence could con- 
sistently be a member of the North Carolina Provin- 
cial Congress. And, finally, we have found out that 
there is no doubt of a Declaration of Independence 
having been made by Mecklenburg County, North 
Carolina, on May 20, 1775. 



THE LIVES OF THE SIGNERS AND A FEW 
SPECTATORS. 

The following sketches of the delegates to the 
convention at Charlotte are copied almost verbatim 
from Draper's manuscript work upon the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration of Independence, preserved in the 
Thwait Library at Madison, Wisconsin : 

GEN. THOMAS POLK 

The original name of the ancestors of the Polks 
of Mecklenburg was Muirhead, whence it was 
changed to Pulloak, then to Pollock — which by- 
obvious transition, assumed its present — as is evident 
by the will of Magdalene Polk, dated 1723, preserved 
among the records of the Orphans' Court of Som- 
erset County, Maryland. 

The traditions of the Greeks and Romans were 
not more quaint and curious as to the origin of their 
heroes than are those of many of the Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians who early migrated to the New World. 
The Polks have had handed down to them a tradition 
running in this wise : 

On a certain great occasion, away back in the 
misty past, a king of Scotland was marching at the 
head of an immense procession, when a small oak 



Declaration of Independence 85 

shrub appeared directly in front of His Majesty, to 
which one of the king's attendants, by the name of 
Muirhead, a man of great physical strength, sprang 
forward, and with a Herculean effort, tore it up by 
the roots and bore it out of the way. Such an act 
of gallantry prompted the king to order a halt, when 
he knighted Muirhead upon the spot, and changed 
his name to Pulloak — pull-oak. Another tradition 
is related of the same person. An enormous size 
and vicious wild boar inhabited that region, a terror 
to all who came within his range. A reward was 
offered by the king to any one who would rid the 
country of the dreaded monster. Pulloak deter- 
mined to try it single-handed. Armed only with a 
bow and arrows, he sallied forth on the dangerous 
adventure. One version of the story is that when 
the wild boar discovered his pursuer he rushed 
toward the bold hunter, who climbed an oak tree, 
and from its branches he shot the fierce animal. 
Another version of the story is that, pursued by the 
enraged boar, Pulloak sprang through an old church 
window, the boar after him; but Pulloak instantly 
darted out of the door and shut it quickly, and 
managed to close the window, and then quietly 
returned home. His neighbors were not a little 
surprised at his safe return. In response to their 
expressions of astonishment, he affected equal sur- 
prise, saying with nonchalance, truly a bit of a pig 
had the hardihood to run at him, when he seized 
it by the tail and threw it into the church window, 
where they might go and satisfy themselves of the 
fact. At length some of the more courageous of 



86 The Mecklenburg 

the number sallied forth to see the game of the 
forester, and were astonished beyond measure when 
they discovered the "bit of a pig" was none other 
than the dreaded wild boar for whose taking off the 
king had offered the large reward. Some of those 
present argued that Pulloak was more than a Sam- 
son, and must have been imbued with supernatural 
aid. And as an additional evidence of his fearless- 
ness, he boldly advanced, and shot the enraged 
animal through one of the windows. 

The hero of the exploit, as the tradition goes, 
kept his own counsel and it was many a long year 
before he saw fit to divulge the manner of his getting 
so dangerous a beast into the church alone and single 
handed. The coat of arms of the Polk family is 
no doubt derived from the latter tradition — "Poll- 
oak, Bar't. Scotch; a boar, passant, pierced by an 
arrow." Motto : Andacter et strenne — Boldly and 
readily. The boar is represented with elevated 
bristles and angered mien, transfixed with an arrow. 

To aid in ameliorating the natural turbulence of 
the Irish character, James I encouraged a large 
emigration into Ireland, and among those who 
settled in that part of Ulster known as Donnegal, 
was the family of Pollocks. Robert, a son of the 
elder Pollock, took an active part in the wars against 
Charles I and fought side by side with Cromwell 
against the Royalists, under Rupert. The powder- 
horn worn by Robert Pollock during the civil wars 
is now in possession of Col. W. H. Pollock. 

Returning home he married Margarette Tasker, 
the widow of Colonel Porter, and heiress of Mo, a 



Declaration of Independence 87 

beautiful estate near the town of Giffoard; whose 
father, Colonel Porter, a chancellor of Ireland, had 
been an eminent man in his day. 

Robert and Magdalene Pollock reared six sons 
and two daughters.. The father and sons obtained 
grants of land in Maryland from Lord Baltimore. 
John Pollock, or Polk, — the eldest son, — in 1685 
settled at a place called Locust Hammock, in Som- 
erset County, on the eastern shore of Maryland. 
Thither parents and children migrated at an early 
period, and became prominent and useful settlers in 
the colony. 

John Polk, who first married and for 

his second wife Joanna Knox, died in 1707, leaving 
two children, William and Nancy. 

William, Priscilla, Robert, and Thomas Polk, the 
subject of this sketch, and the eldest of eight chil- 
dren, was born in Somerset County, Maryland, 
about 1730. His father moved to the neighborhood 
of Carlisle, Cumberland County, in 1750, then a 
newly settled region of Pennsylvania, fast filling up 
with hardy Scotch-Irish emigrants. 

Thomas Polk's early educational advantages must 
have been quite respectable for that day, since he 
fitted himself for the occupation of surveyor; and 
on attaining the age of manhood, and learning of 
the new settlement along the Catawba Valley, since 
known as Mecklenburg, he directed his course 
thither, about the commencement of the border 
trouble of i754- , 55, the Indian outbreak incited by 



88 The Mecklenburg 

French influence extending from the frontiers of 
New Hampshire to the back settlements of the 
Carolinas. 

Thomas Spratt is said to have been the first man 
who moved his family on wheels across the Yadkin, 
stopping a while on Rocky River, and then settling 
within the present limits of Charlotte. Thomas 
Polk, when he arrived at Thomas Spratt's, had only 
a knapsack on his back and a goodly share of 
indomitable enterprise. He soon married Susanna 
Spratt, the daughter of this early settler, and their 
son, William, who distinguished himself in the 
Revolutionary War, was born in Mecklenburg 
County in 1758. During the period of 1756 to 1760 
there were some Indian troubles on the Catawba 
and Yadkin frontiers; and it may well be supposed 
that Thomas Polk here learned some of those lessons 
of bravery and leadership which he displayed so 
creditably during the subsequent years of the Revo- 
lutionary War. The characteristics of the pioneer 
settlers of Mecklenburg are well described by an 
aged native of that region, whose clear memory 
reaches back into the close of the last century. They 
were, he says, strong in body, strong in mind, brave 
and patriotic. 

They were driven by persecution from Scotland 
and Ireland, and were called Scotch-Irish. 

They were determined to have liberty or have 
death. They lived far from market and had few 
luxuries. Those who could afford it had coffee for 
breakfast on Sunday morning, before they went to 
church, but at no other time. Though they lived 



Declaration of Independence 89 

plainly, they lived abundantly. The land was rich, 
producing all manner of grain, stock always plenty 
and always fat. The women were the best of cooks ; 
no negroes then; no cotton, no drunkards, no 
thieves; no locks on dwellings, corn-crib or smoke- 
houses. The hardest time of the year was to harvest 
their crops. Then all through winter they had little 
to do but to attend their stock, pay and receive visits. 
Happy days ! 

Thomas Polk was originally a surveyor, says Dr. 
Johnson in his traditions of the revolution in the 
southwestern part of North Carolina; his education 
was not acquired within the classic walls of a college, 
but partially obtained at intervals from his occupa- 
tions in hills, valleys, and forests of the Province. 

Then he became universally known and respected, 
no man possessing more influence in that part of 
North Carolina. As early as 1770 he was one of 
the two representatives of Mecklenburg County in 
the popular house of the Legislature, and in June, 
1772, he was employed by Governor Martin as 
surveyor in running the western extension of the 
boundary line between North and South Carolina. 
As indicative of the independent spirit of the people 
in opposing royal encroachments on their rights, the 
popular house in February, 1773, refused to vote an 
appropriation of £172 10s. to pay the claim of the 
surveyor for running the line, even though so popu- 
lar a man of the people, and a former member of the 
house, as Captain Polk, contending that the previous 



90 The Mecklenburg 

Assembly had expressed its sense of injury that 
accrued to the colony by fixing the line as proposed 
by the Governor. 

At the breaking out of the Revolution, Thomas 
Polk was the colonel of the militia, and the most 
popular man in Mecklenburg, and all his influence 
was exerted in behalf of the popular cause. 

It is apparent from Martin's History of North 
Carolina, and from the statements of some of the 
delegates with reference to the Mecklenburg Resolves 
of May 20, 1775, that he had the principal agency in 
calling the convention of which he was a conspicuous 
member and popular leader of the people. Foote 
says that he was well known and well acquainted in 
the surrounding counties, a man of great excellence 
and merited popularity. He was also one of the 
Mecklenburg members of the Provincial Congress 
that held sessions at Hillsborough during August 
and September, 1775, and served on important com- 
mittees — one to prepare a plan for the regulation 
of internal peace, order and safety of the Province. 
On September 9, 1775, he was appointed by the 
Provincial Congress colonel of the militia of Meck- 
lenburg, and in November and December following, 
marched at the head of six companies, aggregating 
three hundred men, into the southeastern part of 
South Carolina to aid in suppressing an outbreak 
of the Tories in that quarter. Some 300 pounds of 
powder was supplied by the authorities of North 
Carolina for the use of his troops against the insur- 
gents near Ninety-Six. It was a hard service with 
some fighting. The Tories were subdued and many 



Declaration of Independence 91 

made prisoners, and in consequence of a heavy snow- 
fall, it was called the snow campaign. This service 
was all the more creditable since it was to serve a 
neighboring Province in suppressing a dangerous 
insurrection, and Colonel Richardson, the South 
Carolina commander, was directed to take Colonel 
Polk's men into the pay of the colony for the expe- 
dition, and tender them the thanks of the South 
Carolina Council of Safety, with the assurance that 
"the service of those good neighbors" would ever be 
held in grateful remembrance. 

In December, while absent on this service, he was 
appointed colonel of the Second of the two regiments 
of Minute Men, ordered to be raised in the district 
of Salisbury, composed of Rowan, Mecklenburg, 
Tryon and Surry counties. He had been but a brief 
period returned from South Carolina when he was 
called to lead his regiment against the Tory High- 
landers on the Cape Fear in February, 1776, and 
reaching Cross Creek, now Fayetteville, received 
intelligence of the decisive victory of Caswell and 
Lillington over the insurgents, and returned home. 

In April he was recommended by the Provincial 
Congress to the command of the Fourth of the six 
Continental regiments, which the Continental Con- 
gress confirmed early in May; and the same month 
he was ordered with his regiment to join General 
Moore at Cape Fear. The six Continental regi- 
ments finally rendezvoused at Wilmington, from 
which at least a portion were ordered in June to the 
defense of Charleston, Polk's regiment being of the 
number. But a single regiment of the North Caro- 



92 The Mecklenburg 

linians, Clarke's, appears to have had any active part 
in repelling the enemy from Charleston. This 
service ended, the North Carolina Continentals seem 
to have returned to their old camp at Wilmington, 
and drilled and perfected themselves during the 
summer and autumn, when they were marched into 
South Carolina. 

In February, 1777, Francis Nash, who had just 
been promoted to a brigadier, was ordered by the 
Continental Congress to use his influence in the 
western part of North Carolina to stimulate the 
filling up of the Continental regiments, and march 
the ensuing month to join General Washington. 

Maj. William Lee Davidson, of Polk's regiment, 
marched with the North Carolina line, but it is not 
apparent that Colonel Polk himself engaged in the 
service. It is probable that inasmuch as the Con- 
tinental regiments were deficient in numbers, there 
were only enough of Polk's to form a major's 
command. 

From this time to the fall of Charleston, in May, 
1780, was comparatively a quiet period in North 
Carolina. 

In 1777 Liberty Hall Academy was established 
in Charlotte on grounds and improvements pur- 
chased by Colonel Polk, and he was made one of 
the trustees. Thus were means for public education 
provided and sustained, until the institution was 
suspended by the subsequent British invasion of the 
country. In 1780 Colonel Polk had troops at Char- 
lotte guarding the public magazines, which were 
removed when the enemy approached in September 



Declaration of Independence 93 

of the same year. He acted as commissary-general 
of supplies both for the North Carolina troops and 
the Continentals under General Yates (Lee Paper, 
N. Y. Hist. Society, p. 145), and there was some 
complaint for inattention to duty on his part in his 
important office, which he explained upon the ground 
of scarcity of supplies and necessary attention to his 
family. 

Col. Alexander Martin, a member of the State 
Board of War, to which Colonel Polk was amenable, 
having visited the army of Mecklenburg, declares in 
a public letter recorded in the journal of the board, 
that in his opinion Colonel Polk had fulfilled the 
duties of his office as well as circumstances would 
admit. 

During Cornwallis's occupancy of the country, 
Colonel Polk had necessarily to retire from Char- 
lotte, and his residence became the headquarters of 
the British general. An original letter written by 
him at this period to the North Carolina Board of 
War is in possession of Col. J. H. Wheeler, viz. : 

"Camp Yadkin River, Oct. 11, 1780. 

"Gentlemen: — I have the pleasure to inform 
you that on Saturday last the noted Colonel Fergu- 
son, with 150 men, fell on King's Mountain; 800 
taken prisoners, with 150 stand of arms. Cleveland 
and Campbell commanded. Glorious affair. In a 



94 The Mecklenburg 

few days doubt not we shall be in Charlotte, and I 
will take possession of my house and his lordship 
take the woods. 

"I am, gentlemen, with respect, 

"Your humble servant, 

"Thomas Polk." 

How such a man as Colonel Polk should have 
been under a cloud of distrust even for a short time, 
as Lossing states, is a little marvelous; yet some 
mischief-making person must have invented a "sus- 
picion that he had accepted of protection from the 
British," and reported it to Gates, who returned from 
his late defeat, and the recent treachery of Arnold, 
readily surmised "suspicious circumstances," and 
ordered Colonel Polk to Salisbury to answer for his 
conduct. So utterly baseless were those cruel sus- 
picions that they were promptly dismissed, and 
Colonel Polk was continued in his double office of 
commissary-general of provisions for the State of 
North Carolina and commissary of purchases for 
the Continental troops. The very first night that 
General Greene, having succeeded Gates, passed at 
headquarters early in December, he spent with 
Colonel Polk in studying the resources of the coun- 
try, and by "the following morning," said Polk to 
Elkanah Watson, "he better understood them than 
Gates had done during the whole period of his 
command." The Mecklenburg region had been the 
granary of provisions for the Americans for the 
whole season, and for the British for a short season, 



Declaration of Independence 95 

the latter demanding heavy supplies; according to 
Stedman, their commissary-general demanding ioo 
cattle per day. 

The country was, therefore, so much exhausted 
that Colonel Polk, who still acted as commissary 
from patriotic motives, declared that it could scarcely 
afford subsistence for a single week. It was with 
regret that General Greene learned from him that 
many reasons conspired, rendering it necessary for 
him to relinquish the office. "I am now too far 
advanced in years to undergo the task and fatigue 
of a commissary-general," wrote Polk to Greene on 
December ioth. On the same day Greene wrote to 
Col. William R. Davie, inviting him to that position, 
saying, "Colonel Polk finds the business of subsisting 
the army too laborious and difficult for him to con- 
duct, and, therefore, has sent in his resignation to 
the Board of War, but the greatest difficulty with 
him is, he cannot leave home owing to the peculiar 
state of his family." Dr. Johnson has presented in 
his traditions of the Revolution the following letter : 

"Camp Charlotte, Dec. 15, 1780. 
"To Colonel Polk: 

"Sir : — I find it will be impossible to leave camp 
as early as I intended, as Colonel Kascius has made 
no report respecting a position upon Pee Dee. I 
must, therefore, beg you to continue the daily sup- 
plies of the army, and keep in readiness three days' 



96 The Mecklenburg 

provisions beforehand. I have just received some 
intelligence from Governor Nash and from Congress 
which makes me wish to see you. I am, etc 

"Nathan Greene." 

There is proof that General Greene had such 
unlimited confidence in Colonel Polk that he wished 
to confide in him intelligence that he did not wish to 
write. Before retiring from service, on General 
Greene's appeal, he exerted himself to procure lumber 
for the barracks at the new position selected for the 
army on Hicks's Creek nearly opposite Cheraw Hill, 
on the Pee Dee ; to build boats for the transportation 
of stores; to collect provisions, and do everything 
that could be done to enable the new commander to 
prepare his men for the active duties of the coming 
campaign. 

General Greene's letters evince a high appreciation 
of Colonel Polk's service, and a still higher evidence 
of his confidence in his skill and patriotism may be 
found in the fact that upon the fall of the gallant 
General Davidson, early in February, 1781, Greene 
appointed Polk to fill the vacancy on the recommen- 
dation of the officers of the brigade as the fittest 
person for the important position among all the 
many patriotic soldiers of Mecklenburg. 

On the receipt of the news of the battle of Guil- 
ford, it was thought Cornwallis would retrace his 
steps by the way of Salisbury and Charlotte, so as 
to keep open the communication and act in concert 
with Lord Rowdon at Camden; and as the citizens 



Declaration of Independence 97 

of that section had already experienced the distress 
of the presence of the British soldiers, they deter- 
mined to do their best to keep the enemy at a dis- 
tance. General Polk accordingly ordered out the 
next division of militia liable for duty, with a view 
of marching to Salisbury to fortify the fords and 
passes on the Yadkin, but before reaching there 
intelligence was received that the British were direct- 
ing their course toward Fayetteville, when Colonel 
Polk dismissed his men and returned. 

General Greene re-entered South Carolina in 
April, taking position before Camden. He called 
upon North Carolina for a draft of three months' 
men, when Colonel Polk exerted himself to meet the 
demands of the occasion, and led a considerable 
force of his countrymen, and joined Greene at 
Rugeley's Mills shortly after the battle at Hobkirk's 
Hill, and remained in that border region, watching 
and checking the British and Tories in both Caro- 
linas, until the expiration of the term of service for 
which his men had been drafted. This appears to 
have been Colonel Polk's last military service. 
Governor Graham well observes that when placed 
in command as brigadier-general, "in all after, as 
in prior times, he was regarded as an unwavering 
patriot." 

General Polk now retired to private life, which, 
with his advancing years, he yearned to enjoy. 
After Rutherford's expedition in the autumn of 
1 78 1, in pursuit of a body of Tories under McNeil 
and other Tory leaders, peace was practically 
restored in North Carolina. 



98 The Mecklenburg 

He owned mills two miles south of Charlotte, and 
kept a store in the village, and was now enabled to 
give his undivided time to his private affairs. 

Elkanah Watson, in his "Men and Times of the 
Revolution," who visited Charlotte in 1785, states: 
"I carried letters to the courteous General Polk, and 
remained two days at his residence in the delightful 
society of his charming family." 

After the war, when the disbanded soldiers of 
the North Carolina line received their land warrants 
in payment for their military services, General Polk 
purchased many of these warrants and went, early 
in 1786, with his four sons, armed with their rifles, 
into the wilderness of Duck River County, in Middle 
Tennessee, to locate them, Col. William Polk having 
been chosen in 1793 one of the principal surveyors. 
Resuming his original profession of surveyor, Gen- 
eral Polk selected the finest lands in that rich valley, 
ran the line, marked them, and secured the titles, 
notwithstanding the hostility of the Indians. So 
when he died in 1793, he left a rich inheritance in 
lands for his children. "He was," says Dr. J. G. 
Ramsey, "a high-souled cavalier, full of dash and 
courage ; rich, hospitable, and charming." Dr. John- 
son relates that several of his children were wild and 
frolicsome — one bore the sobriquet of "Devil 
Charley" ; that on one occasion the General was 
speaking of the boldness of single highway robbery, 
and declared that no single man would dare make 
such an attempt on him. The sons all heard it, and 
Charley resolved to have his fun, even at his father's 
expense. So when his father was returning on a 



Declaration of Independence 99 

by-road with a sum of money he had been collecting, 
the reckless son, disguised, waylaid him in a creek 
bottom and demanded the instant delivery of his 
money. The General's first thought was to snatch 
up his pistols, but Charles was too quick for him, 
and seeing a pistol, as he supposed, presented at his 
breast, the father gave up his money and returned 
home not a little fretted and mortified at the result. 
Perceiving his depression of spirits, the young men 
inquired into the cause and offered their aid in any 
difficulties. He frankly told them he had been 
robbed of such a sum of money, designating the 
place. They all expressed surprise, and inquired if 
he were not armed. He acknowledged that he had 
his pistols, but had not had time to use them. When 
they concluded that there must have been several 
highwaymen banded together to have effected their 
purpose, he, with increased mortification, confessed 
that there was but one ; but added that he was off his 
guard, and was taken by surprise. Charles at this 
point returned the money, acknowledging that he 
had taken it from him. "What!" exclaimed the 
General, "Did you endanger your father's life?" 
"No, sir," said Charles. "What, did you not present 
a pistol at my breast?" "No, sir," replied the son. 
"How can you say that?" asked the father. "I 
assure you, sir, it was only my mother's brass candle- 
stick that I took off from your own mantelpiece." 

Of Colonel Polk's three daughters, Margaret 
married Dr. Ephraim Brevard, whose name is so 
intimately associated with the Mecklenburg Conven- 
tion and famous Resolves of May 20, 1775. She 



100 The Mecklenburg 

died early and left an only daughter, Margaret Polk, 
who became the wife of Nathaniel Alexander, a 
native of Mecklenburg, who graduated at Princeton 
in 1776, and after studying medicine, entered the 
army, served in the House of Commons in 1797, in 
the State Senate in 1801 and 1802, and, while hold- 
ing a seat in Congress in 1803-05, he was chosen by 
the Legislature Governor of the State, serving two 
years. He died at Charlotte, November 8, 1808, at 
the age of 52 years, leaving no children. General 
Polk's third daughter married a man named Brown, 
leaving no issue. 

COL. ABRAHAM ALEXANDER 

The Alexanders were very numerous at the time 
of the Revolution and since in Mecklenburg, and 
although of the same original Scotch-Irish stock, 
they were of different degrees of consanguinity. 
Hezekiah and John McKnitt Alexander were broth- 
ers; while Abraham, Adam, Charles and Ezra 
Alexander were their cousins. (See Mans. Letters 
of Dr. J. G. M. Ramsay, October 2, 1875.) 

Foote relates that, among Presbyterian emigra- 
tions from Scotland to Ireland, to escape persecution 
for conscience's sake, during the period between 
1 6 10 and 1688, there were seven brothers bearing 
the same name of Alexander. 

But their grievances increasing a few years pre- 
ceding the Revolution of 1688, their ministers 
imprisoned for holding fasts, the Alexanders re- 
solved, to seek quiet and repose in the New World. 



Declaration of Independence 101 

On the eve of their departure, they sent to Scotland 
for their old preacher to baptize their children and 
administer to them the consolations of the Gospel. 
The faithful and fearless preacher arrived in time to 
meet the friends on the vessel on which they had 
embarked, and there held becoming religious serv- 
ices. An armed company now came on board, broke 
up the meeting, and lodged the minister in jail. 
Toward night an old matron addressed her kinsman : 
"Men, gang ye away, tak' our minister out o' the 
jail, and tak' him, guide soule, wi' us till Ameriky." 
Her commands had never been disobeyed. Before 
morning the minister was on board and the vessel 
had proceeded on its voyage. The minister having 
no family, cheerfully consented to the arrangement, 
and with joy and thanksgiving they landed safely on 
Manhattan. Part of the company remained there, 
from whom it is related Wm. Alexander, commonly 
known as Lord Sterling, a major-general of the Rev- 
olution, descended. The others took up their abode 
for a time in New Jersey ; then settled in part, per- 
haps, in Cecil County, Maryland, and others in 
Pennsylvania. There they mingled with their 
countrymen, intermarried, and their descendants in 
great numbers migrated to the Catawba country, fol- 
lowing the great valley of Virginia from Pennsylva- 
nia and Maryland. This movement began slowly 
about 1745, and more rapidly from 1750 onward. 
Maj. Thomas Alexander and Dan Alexander, both 
soldiers of the Revolution, were natives of Mecklen- 
burg, the former having been born in 1753, the lat- 



102 The Mecklenburg 

ter in 1758. Abraham Alexander was among those 
early emigrants. He was born, apparently, in Cecil 
County, Maryland, in 171 7, and migrated early to 
the Catawba country; soon attained a prominent 
position among the pioneer settlers. He was long a 
leading magistrate of his county, and the honored 
chairman of the Inferior Court both before and dur- 
ing the Revolution. With Col. Thomas Polk, he 
represented Mecklenburg in the Assembly in 1771, 
and ranked among the leading Whigs of that day. 
He seemed, however, not to have been ambitious for 
honor and place, for he declined at the next election 
to solicit the suffrage of the people. He is next 
found presiding at the Mecklenburg Convention of 
May 20, 1775, and was active during the whole 
period of the Revolution, both as member of the 
Justice Court and as chairman of the Committee of 
Safety. He was, in 1777, appointed as one of the 
original trustees of Liberty Hall Academy, and was 
for many years an elder in Sugar Creek Presbyterian 
Church. He died April 28, 1778, in the 69th year 
of his age, and his widow, Dorcas, survived till May 
28th, when she passed away in her 67th year, and 
her remains rest beside those of her husband in the 
old Sugar Creek burial ground. They had five sons 
and one daughter — Abraham, Isaac, Nathaniel, 
Elias, and Joab. Isaac became a distinguished 
physician, and settled in Camden, S. C, while his 
brothers spent their days as tillers of the soil. 
Elizabeth, the sister, became the wife of William 
Alexander, son of Hezekiah Alexander. 



Declaration of Independence 103 

dr. ephraim brevard 

The earliest known Brevard was a French 
Huguenot, leaving his native land on the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, and settling among the 
Scotch-Irish in the northern part of Ireland, where 
he formed an acquaintance with a family of 
McKnitts, in company with whom he sailed for 
America. Among the McKnitt emigrants was a 
blooming lassie, who may have had quite as much 
to do in attracting his attention as the cheap lands 
and glowing accounts of the New World. A mutual 
attachment sprang up, which eventuated in marriage. 
They settled on the waters of Elk River, Cecil 
County, in the northeastern corner of Maryland, 
bordering on Pennsylvania. Five sons and one 
daughter were the issue of this union, of whom John, 
Robert, Zebulon, and their married sister and hus- 
band migrated to the Yadkin and Catawba country 
about 1747, and settled in what was subsequently 
Rowan, and since Iredell County. 

Some years prior to this removal, John Brevard, 
the elder of the brothers, had married Jane 
McWhirter, a sister of Dr. Alex McWhirter, of 
Scotch-Irish extraction, of the adjoining county of 
New Castle, Delaware; and their fifth child and 
eldest son, Ephraim, was born in 1744 in Cecil 
County, Maryland, and was only about three years 
old when his parents removed to the wilds of North 
Carolina, settling in what subsequently became 
Iredell County. While a boy he had the misfortune 
to lose one of his eyes, and after attending a classical 



104 The Mecklenburg 

school near his father's residence, he was sent, on 
the conclusion of the Indian war in 1761, with his 
cousin, Adlai Osborne, to attend a grammar school 
in Prince Edward County, Virginia, under William 
Capples. The young men, with Thomas Reese, 
entered Princeton College in 1766, graduating in 
1768. Reese and Brevard taught school some time 
in Maryland, which enabled Brevard to put himself 
under the tuition of Dr. David Ramsay, subsequently 
so celebrated in civil life during the Revolution and 
as an historian after the war. After pursuing his 
medical studies some time in Philadelphia, Dr. 
Ramsay removed to Somerset County, Maryland. 
Brevard accompanied him, and after a due course 
there, he commenced the practice of his profession 
in Charlotte. Possessed of more than common 
abilities, well cultured under the instructions of Dr. 
Witherspoon, Dr. Ramsay and others, and of pre- 
possessing manners, he at once took a prominent 
position and exerted a large influence among the 
Mecklenburg people. He was soon united in mar- 
riage with a daughter of Col. Thomas Polk, who 
died leaving him an only daughter. The distin- 
guished part he acted in the Mecklenburg Convention 
of May 20, 1775, as a member, and the reputed 
author of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independ- 
ence Resolves of May 20, 1775, will cause his name 
to ever fill an honored place in the record of western 
Carolina. Bancroft declares that his name "should 
be remembered with honor by his countrymen" for 
having "digested the system which was then adopted 
and formed in effect a Declaration of Independence, 



Declaration of Independence 105 

as well as a complete system of government," and 
Gridsby pronounces him an exalted patriot, and as 
to the record of the Resolves, that the beauty of 
their diction, their elegant precision, the wide scope 
of statesmanship which they exhibit, prove incon- 
testibly that the man who put them forth was worthy 
of their high trust at the difficult crisis. 

In February, 1776, we find him the tutor of the 
Queen's Museum Academy, with nineteen young 
men under him, whom he led as their captain in 
Colonel Polk's regiment in an expedition against 
Scotch Tories on the Cape Fear. How long he 
continued teaching is not known. 

In 1777, when Liberty Hall Academy was organ- 
ized, he was one of the original trustees, and his 
name as such is appended to a degree given to John 
Graham in 1778. 

After performing every duty to his people befitting 
a patriot, he entered the Southern army as a surgeon, 
and was captured at the surrender of Charleston in 
May, 1780. There, from long confinement and 
unwholesome diet, he was taken sick, and when at 
length set at liberty, he reached the home of his 
friend, John McKnitt Alexander, where he lingered 
for several months, his disease baffling the best 
medical skill — Dr. William Read, Physician General 
to the Southern army, visiting him from the hospital 
at Charlotte. He finally breathed his last some time 
in 1 781, about the age of 37 years, and was probably 
buried in Hopewell Cemetery near John McKnitt 
Alexander's home, although tradition says he is 
interred in Charlotte on the square now occupied by 



106 The Mecklenburg 

the county court-house, and bounded by Third, 
Fourth, Tryon, and College streets. Before and 
during the Revolutionary War Queen's Museum, 
afterwards called Liberty Hall, established in 1771, 
by the Mecklenburg Presbyterians in opposition to 
British authority, stood on this ground. And when 
Cornwallis occupied Charlotte with his army in 
September and October, 1780, the buildings were 
used for a hospital, and the soldiers that died there 
were buried near the house. Consequently, it is not 
reasonable to suppose under those circumstances, 
that John McKnitt Alexander, with his church, 
Hopewell, near at hand, would bring the remains of 
Brevard nine miles to Charlotte, where there was no 
church in that day, and bury them among British 
soldiers whose government was still waging war on 
the American colonies. 

In the language of Dr. Foote, "He thought clearly, 
felt deeply, wrote well, resisted bravely, and died a 
martyr to that liberty none loved better and few 
understood so well." He was a man of undoubted 
genius and talent. (See MS. Letters of Rev. R. H. 
King to Dr. J. G. M. Ramsay, April 9, 1823.) His 
only daughter, on arriving at years of womanhood, 
married a Dickerson, settled at Camden, S. C, and 
left one child, a son, James Polk Dickerson, who 
was lieutenant-colonel of Butler's regiment of South 
Carolina Volunteers in the Mexican war; was 
severely wounded at the siege of Vera Cruz March 
11, 1847; recovering from that, he was again badly 



Declaration of Independence 107 

wounded at Cherubusco on the 20th of August 
following, and died of his wound three weeks later, 
greatly regretted by his regiment and the whole 
army. 

COL. ADAM ALEXANDER 

The place of Col. A. Alexander's birth is not 
certainly known, but he was possibly a native of 
Cecil County, Maryland, and was born in 1728. He 
was among the pioneer settlers of Mecklenburg. He 
married a Miss Shelby. As early as June, 1770, we 
find him a prominent member of Clear Creek con- 
gregation, and the next year he commanded a com- 
pany under General Waddell to aid in putting down 
the Regulators, who had taken the law in their own 
hands in upholding the usurpations and extortions 
of Governor Tryon's favorites. That Captain 
Alexander was unwilling to shed the blood of his 
oppressed countrymen is readily seen by the course 
he and other officers pursued in persuading Waddell 
to return from their camp on Pott's Creek across 
the Yadkin, both on account of the superiority of 
the insurgents, and the unwillingness of the men to 
engage them, while waiting for a convoy of ammu- 
nition under a small guard from Charlotte. A party 
of ten or twelve, under Capt. William Alexander, 
blackened and disguised, seized the convoy and 
destroyed the powder, and ever after he was known 
as "Black Billy" Alexander. 

Capt. Adam Alexander, on the day of the nth of 
May, immediately after uniting with his brother 
officers in advising a retreat beyond the Yadkin, went 



108 The Mecklenburg 

in person and reconnoitered the Regulators, and 
returning, reported that he had passed along their 
lines and the footmen appeared to him to extend 
a quarter of a mile, seven or eight deep, and that the 
horsemen, 120 yards, twelve or fourteen deep. On 
the 19th Waddell, with his small force of 250 men, 
was obliged to retreat from his position, two miles 
eastward of the Yadkin, to Salisbury, the Regulators 
having surrounded his party and threatened to cut 
them to pieces if they offered to join the main army 
under Tryon. But the principal body of the insur- 
gents had been defeated on the 16th at Alamance, 
and Tryon marched with his victorious troops to join 
Waddell, then entrenched near Salisbury, eight miles 
to the eastward of the Yadkin. Receiving intelli- 
gence that the Regulators in the region embracing 
the present counties of Mecklenburg, Lincoln, and 
Iredell were meditating further hostilities, General 
Waddell was sent into that quarter with a strong 
detachment, including the Mecklenburg troops. 
Early in June, with orders, after he had performed 
the service assigned him, to disband his troops, meet- 
ing with no opposition, he had little to do besides 
administering the oath of allegiance to the people. 
Adam Alexander was many years a prominent 
magistrate and member of the County Court, and 
on May 20, 1775, was one °f tne members of the 
Mecklenburg Convention. In September following, 
he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Mecklen- 
burg "Minute Men" under Colonel Polk, and served 
shortly after in one of the Snow Campaigns against 
the Tories in South Carolina. 



Declaration of Independence 109 

When the "Minute Men" of the Salisbury district 
were, in December, 1775, formed into two groups, 
he was re-appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Second 
Regiment under Colonel Polk, and marched, in 
February, 1776, to aid in quelling the insurrection 
of the Highlanders on the Cape Fear. 

In the ensuing April, when Polk was chosen to 
command one of the Continental regiments, Adam 
Alexander succeeded him as colonel of the Mecklen- 
burg regiments. When the Cherokees commenced 
hostilities early in the summer of 1776, incited 
thereto by the machinations of the enemy, Colonel 
Alexander led a force to the head of the Catawba, 
where he served six weeks in protecting the Catawba 
Valley during the harvest, and went with his regi- 
ment under General Rutherford, later in the season, 
on his expedition against the treacherous Cherokees, 
destroying their crops and villages. 

Dr. Caldwell refers to Colonel Alexander when 
President Washington made his Southern tour in 
1792, as "far advanced in life." His death occurred 
in 1798, at the age of 70 years, lamented by all who 
knew him. His remains were interred at Rock 
Springs. Adam Alexander was a man of military 
genius, remarkably endowed. He was a Presbyterian. 

He had four sons — Evan, Isaac, Adam, and 
Charles, and one daughter, Mary. She married 
John Springs. All the Springs of Mecklenburg, 
a large, wealthy and intelligent connection, are 
descendants of Colonel Alexander. » 

His son, Evan Alexander, whom he sent to Prince- 
ton with the hope that he would enter the ministry, 



110 The Mecklenburg 

graduated in 1787, became a prominent lawyer in 
Charlotte; was two years a member of the Legisla- 
ture, then representative in Congress from 1805 to 
1809, and died unmarried October 28th, in the latter 
year. 

Isaac Alexander held various offices of trust in 
the county, while his brother Charles occupied the 
old homestead, married a Miss Means, and had 
several talented sons, who died young. 

GEN. ROBERT IRWIN 

William Irwin was one of the early Scotch-Irish 
settlers in West Pennsborough, Cumberland County, 
Pennsylvania, a few miles southeast of Carlisle. 
His son, Robert, the eighth of thirteen children, was 
born August 26, 1740, and was reared with few 
advantages on his native homestead. When his 
father died, not long prior to May, 1763, the farm 
of one hundred acres was purchased of the heirs at 
£15 each, by their elder brother, John Irwin, and 
with this Robert Irwin commenced life and wended 
his way to the Steele Creek settlement in Mecklen- 
burg. He was soon after united in marriage with 
Mary Alexander, daughter of Zebulon Alexander, 
an early emigrant from Pennsylvania. About the 
period of 1767, Robert Irwin was one of the first 
bench of elders of Steele Creek Church. He was 
one of the members of the Mecklenburg Convention 
in May, 1775, an d thenceforward proved himself 
one of the active leaders of the Mecklenburg people 
during the war. It is altogether probable he had 



Declaration of Independence 111 

seen service during the French and Indian War on 
the frontier of Pennsylvania, for Colonel Armstrong 
led many a daring force against the Indians during 
that period from the Carlisle region; and more 
probably still he was employed against the Regula- 
tors in 1 77 1, and on the Snow Campaign near the 
close of 1775. After having served as a member 
of the North Carolina Provincial Congress in April 
and May, 1776, he engaged in General Rutherford's 
campaign against the Cherokees during the summer 
and autumn of that year. Returning from this 
expedition in October, he was rechosen to a seat in 
the Provincial Congress, which met in November 
in the double capacity of making laws and forming 
a new Constitution. On the death of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Phifer, he succeeded him in 1777 as second 
in command of the Mecklenburg militia. 

General Irwin died at his residence in the Steele 
Creek settlement, in Mecklenburg County, December 
23, 1800, in his 6 1 st year, and was interred in the 
Steele Creek burial ground, his wife's remains 
occupying the same grave. On his tombstone is 
engraved this beautiful and truthful delineation of 
his character, "Great, noble, generous, good and 
brave." 

JOHN M'KNITT ALEXANDER 

Little more can be said of Mr. Alexander than has 
already been indicated. Born in 1733, in Pennsyl- 
vania, as stated by Dr. Foote, but according to more 
reliable information, in the northeastern portion of 
Cecil County, Maryland, where his father, James 



112 The Mecklenburg 

Alexander, settled on a tract of land called New 
Munster, in 1714, where soon after he married 
Margaret McKnitt, a sister of John McKnitt, an 
early emigrant to the southern part of the same 
county. The father, James Alexander, remained in 
Maryland, surviving till 1779; but his son, John 
McKnitt Alexander, who had served an apprentice- 
ship to a tailor, migrated in 1754, when 21 years old, 
to Mecklenburg County, accompanied by his brother, 
Hezekiah, and sister, Jemima, and her husband, 
Maj. Thomas Sharpe, also of Cecil County. In the 
early days of Mecklenburg, when the deer and 
buffalo furnished not only viands for the table, but 
a portion of apparel for the people, a leather-breeches 
maker was not probably a sufficiently profitable 
occupation for the enterprising young Marylander; 
so we soon find him a land surveyor and a large 
land-holder, surveying and taking lands as far away 
as Chester District, in South Carolina, forty miles 
distant. In 1759 ne married Jane Bane, from Penn- 
sylvania, of the same Scotch-Irish stock with him- 
self, and settled in the Hopewell congregation. 
Enterprising, shrewd, and honorable, he prospered 
in business and became wealthy. Colonel Wheeler, 
in his "Sketches of Mecklenburg Delegates," states 
that Mr. Alexander was a member of the Provincial 
Assembly in 1772, while Jones's defense indicates 
that Martin Phifer and John Davidson were the 
Mecklenburg representatives at that time. But his 
was a busy and useful life in the civil time, during 
the Revolutionary War, long and faithfully serving 
as a magistrate and member of the County Court; 



Declaration of Independence 113 

one of the members of the Mecklenburg Convention 
of May 20, 1775; the successor of Dr. Brevard as 
secretary of the Mecklenburg Committee of Safety, 
and a representative in the Provincial Congress in 
August and September, 1775. The same year he 
visited Philadelphia, where he communicated to Dr. 
Franklin the facts and circumstances of the pre- 
ceding Mecklenburg Convention, when they were 
fresh in his memory, who expressed his approbation 
of their act. In April, 1776, we again find him a 
member of the Provincial Congress; in the State 
Senate in 1777, and the same year chosen a trustee 
of Liberty Hall Academy. 

How Mr. Alexander regarded the Red Coats 
when they invaded the soil of Mecklenburg in the 
fall of 1780, may best be seen in the notice of 
Duncan Ochiltree. It was a high compliment to his 
sterling patriotism that General Davidson, at that 
period, named his encampment in Mecklenburg 
"Camp McKnitt Alexander." 

When Cornwallis undertook the vain effort of 
endeavoring to recover the Cowpens prisoners from 
Morgan, early in 1781, and General Greene exerted 
himself to thwart his Lordship's purpose, Mr. Alex- 
ander, though his age would have excused him from 
exposure, accompanied Greene as a pilot, if not a 
volunteer aid, and was actively employed in destroy- 
ing, or sinking, ferry boats on the Yadkin and Dan 
rivers; and by his zeal in the cause, his intimate 
knowledge as an old surveyor of the topography of 



114 The Mecklenburg 

the roads, and people of the county, he was able to 
afford valuable assistance as counsellor to the Ameri- 
can general. 

For many years he was a sturdy Presbyterian, an 
elder in the church, and a prominent actor in all its 
public convocations. During the closing five or six 
years of his life he was nearly blind and very infirm ; 
but his children, grand-children, and numerous 
friends loved and revered him, and united in lament- 
ing his separation from them July 10, 1817, in the 
85th year of his age. In the graveyard at Hopewell 
his remains sleep in peace beside those of his beloved 
companion. He left two sons, William Bane and 
Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander; and of his five 
daughters, one, Abigail Bane, was united in marriage 
to Rev. S. C. Caldwell; another to Rev. James 
Wallis, and a third to Col. Francis A. Ramsay, 
father of the worthy historian of Tennessee. As 
he appeared to D. G. Stinson in 1813, Mr. Alexander 
was a man of medium size, dark skin, with a good 
intellectual face, neat and tidy in his dress; he was 
very dignified, and had the reputation of being a 
very sensible person. He was quite a politician in 
his day, of the old Federal school — while his son- 
in-law, Rev. James Wallis, was a prominent Demo- 
cratic leader, and was often engaged to deliver 
political addresses on the Fourth of July occasions. 

REV. HEZEKIAH BALCH 

The Balch family was originallv from Wales, and 
the name signifies "proud" in the Welsh language. 
John Balch is said to have emigrated to New 



Declaration of Independence 115 

England at an early period from Bridgewater, in 
Somerset, England, and became possessed of a large 
property and extensive influence. A great grandson 
of his, Col. James Balch, migrated directly from his 
native England, married Anne Goodwine, and settled 
on Deer Creek, in Harford County, Maryland, where 
his eldest son, Hezekiah, was born in 1746. His 
father was a man of highly gifted and cultivated 
mind, possessing a fine poetical talent, and was the 
author of some anonymous pieces that had no small 
celebrity in their day. While his son was yet a 
youth, the father moved with his family from Mary- 
land and settled in Mecklenburg. 

After assisting his father on the farm, young 
Balch was at length sent to Princeton College, where 
he graduated in 1766 in the same class with Waight- 
still Avery, Chief Justice Ellsworth, and the cele- 
brated Luther Martin. He was licensed to preach 
by the Presbytery of Donnegal in 1767, and in 1769 
he was ordained and sent as a missionary to Rocky 
River and Poplar Tent churches, within the limits of 
Mecklenburg. He had married (a Miss Sconnel, it 
is believed) shortly before removing to the county, 
and settled six miles west of the present town of 
Concord, on the Beattie's Ford road. It must be 
conceded that during his brief period of labor, about 
seven years, he performed a good pioneer work for 
the Church and State — for the cause of liberty and 
the cause of education. A member of the Mecklen- 
burg Convention of May, 1775, he not only voted 
for the noble Resolves, but enforced them by his 
vigorous sense and eloquence. He did what he 



116 The Mecklenburg 

could for his country and his kind ; but in the summer 
of 1776 he was called to his reward at the early age 
of 30 years. He was reputed an elegant and accom- 
plished scholar. He is said to have been a tall, 
handsome man, with fair hair, which he wore long 
and curling. He had two or more children. His 
widow subsequently married a man by the name of 
McWhorter, a professional teacher, and moved with 
him and her children to Tennessee, Mrs. McWhorter 
taking the children as she passed along on her 
journey to view their father's grave for the last time. 
All trace of these children has been lost. Mr. Balch 
had three brothers and several sisters. Two of the 
former were noted Presbyterian clergymen, Rev. Dr. 
Steven B. Balch, of Georgetown, and Rev. James 
Balch, of Kentucky; the third, William Balch, a 
planter in Georgia. In 1847 means were provided 
and a suitable monument erected over his grave, for 
which Rev. J. A. Wallace prepared an appropriate 
inscription. 



HEZEKIAH ALEXANDER 



This member of the numerous Alexander family 
was a brother of John McKnitt Alexander, and was 
born in Cecil County, in the northern part of Mary- 
land, in January, 1722. He migrated with his 
family to the Mecklenburg country in 1754, and was 
soon assigned a prominent place among the early 
settlers. He located four or five miles east of Char- 
lotte and in 1764 erected a stone residence on which 
the date is cut, and is a good house to this day. 
He was for many years a magistrate and member of 



Declaration of Independence 117 

the County Court. Foote relates of him that he 
was "the clearest-headed magistrate in the county," 
a high compliment. In May, 1775, he served in the 
Mecklenburg Convention, and in the ensuing Sep- 
tember he was chosen a member of the Salisbury 
District Committee of Safety. In April, 1776, he 
was appointed paymaster of Col. Thomas Polk's 
regiment of the Continentals, and the next month he 
was chosen one of the two members to represent the 
Salisbury District in the State Council of Safety, on 
pay of twenty shillings proclamation money for each 
day's traveling and attendance. He died June 16, 
1 801. 

CAPT. ZACCHEUS WILSON 



The Wilsons were of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian 
stock, and were among the early settlers of Cumber- 
land County, Pennsylvania, where Zaccheus Wilson 
was born, probably as early as about 1735 or 1740. 
When he grew to man's estate, he was not "little of 
statue" as Zaccheus of old — for like nearly all of 
that numerous connection, his person was of full 
medium size, rather heavily framed, and possessing 
great power in the vigor of life. He received but 
a limited education, and while yet quite young 
settled with his parents in the Poplar Tent region, 
originally a part of Mecklenburg, now Cabarrus 
County. This was prior to March, 1753. He had 
a younger sister who married Capt. Stephen Alex- 
ander, who survived till the age of 90 — the chronicler 
of her region. 



118 The Mecklenburg 

Zaccheus Wilson had three brothers, two of whom 
were Robert and David, and three sisters. Reared 
on the frontier, Zaccheus and his brothers were not 
the men to have shirked any duty in aiding in the 
defence of the country. On the Yadkin River, in 
Rowan County, one Nicholas Ross early settled, 
marrying Lizzie Conger, daughter of John Conger. 
There were then many wild horses running in the 
woods. Having a fine animal of his own, and 
needing another, Ross went in the spring of the year 
to the range and selected one that he thought would 
suit his purpose, and started to run him down and 
halter him. But in the race, the horse plunged in 
a hole, turned a complete somersault, and fell back on 
and crushed his pursuer, who left a widow and two 
little daughters. (MS. Letter of Rev. Nicholson 
Ross Morgan, a son of the younger of Mr. Ross's 
daughters. The elder married Matthew Harris, a 
nephew of Col. Robert and Samuel Harris, of Rocky 
River. ) 

Zaccheus Wilson, in his occupation of a surveyor, 
was sent for to survey and divide the land for the 
heirs ; saw, admired, and married the young widow, 
and took her to his home in the Steele Creek region. 

About 1767, we find him one of the elders of Steele 
Creek Church. He had a decided love for mathe- 
matical studies, which he pursued with little or no 
instruction, and became one of the best surveyors of 
his day. 

He was a member of the Mecklenburg Convention 
in May, 1775, and of the Provincial Congress of 
November, 1776, for making laws and forming a 



Declaration of Independence 119 

Constitution. The only military service particularly 
remembered, though much in the army, was as a 
Captain at King's Mountain, where among plunder 
taken was an English surveyor's compass and 
platting instruments, which were assigned to him in 
the division, and are yet preserved by one of his 
descendants. He was a member of the North Caro- 
lina Convention of 1788 for the consideration of the 
Federal Constitution, and he was among the large 
majority that refused to give it their approval, as 
wanting in a proper protection of the rights of the 
people. 

When the county of Cabarrus was set off from 
Mecklenburg, in 1792, Captain Wilson was a resi- 
dent of that region, and was chosen county surveyor. 

In 1796, Captain Wilson, having lost his wife, 
resolved on following his brother, Maj. David Wil- 
son, who had nine years before moved to Sumner 
County, Tennessee; and just prior to his departure 
he visited his step-daughter, the mother of the ven- 
erable Rev. N. H. Morgan. "The last night he 
spent with us," says Mr. Morgan, "I slept with him, 
and about midnight the wolves raised a furious 
howling around the cow pen. The old gentleman 
went out and chased them away, and I as a mere 
lad remember how I trembled lest he should be 
devoured." In this migration, besides his two sons, 
a goodly number of Wilsons and some Alexanders 
accompanied him. His removal was much regretted 
by his old friends and neighbors. His education, 
mostly self-acquired, was quite liberal. He was very 
popular, a Presbyterian spotless in life, a noble, 



120 The Mecklenburg 

worthy man, without an equal in his profession as a 
surveyor. He settled one mile northeast of Gallatin, 
in Sumner County, twenty-six miles above Nashville, 
where he followed his profession as long as he was 
able to do so. He died in 1824. 

NEIL MORRISON 

James Morrison, a native of Scotland, early 
migrated to this country; settled in Philadelphia, 
where his son, Neil Morrison, was born in 1728. 
On reaching years of manhood, he engaged in 
mercantile business in that city, and then married. 

A few years before the Revolution the father and 
his three sons moved to Mecklenburg and located 
on Four Mile Creek, in Providence settlement, Neil 
Morrison at this time having a family. James 
Morrison lived to be an old man of 81 years, and 
was interred in Providence burial ground. Neil 
Morrison's abilities soon commanded respect, and he 
was chosen one of the members of the Mecklenburg 
Convention in May, 1775. He engaged heartily in 
the military service, commanding a company on 
Rutherford's campaign in 1776, against the Cherokee 
Indians, burning their towns, cutting down their 
corn and throwing it into the streams. 

His other services are not known. He was a 
justice of the peace and a member of the County 
Court. He died September 13, 1784, at the age of 
56 years, and was buried in Providence graveyard. 
His widow survived him until her 89th year. His 
son, William Morrison, was early sent to Princeton 



Declaration of Independence 121 

College, but the war early in 1776 interrupted his 
studies, so he bought himself a rifle and returned 
home, and entered the service, serving a while on 
Sullivan's Island. At Gates's defeat in August, 
1780, he was wounded by a musket ball, taken 
prisoner and confined in jail in Camden, whence his 
mother and sister succeeded in getting him pardoned ; 
then conveyed him to Charlotte, where Dr. Hender- 
son extracted the ball and he recovered. He subse- 
quently became a prominent physician, and died in 
1806, together with his brothers, Alexander and 
James, all within a period of three months. Dr. 
William Morrison was t a member of the Legislature 
in 1796 — elected as a Federalist — and his brother, 
Alexander, in 180 1 to 1803, as a Republican. Their 
sister became the wife of Maj. Thomas Alexander, 
who served under Davie and Sumter in the Revo- 
lution. 

RICHARD BARRY 

Of Scotch-Irish descent, Richard Barry was born 
in Pennsylvania in 1726. He married Anne Price, 
of Maryland, also of Scotch-Irish descent, and settled 
many years before the Revolution in the Mecklen- 
burg district, twelve miles northeast of Charlotte, at 
what is still known as the old Barry tanyard. 

Though best known as a member of the Mecklen- 
burg Convention of May, 1775, he performed many 
other services of a useful character, having served 
many years as a magistrate and a member of the 
County Court, and though advanced in life, he set 
the good example of taking his place among the 



122 The Mecklenburg 

Mecklenburg troops when their services were called 
into requisition. At the age of 55 he fought as 
valiantly as the younger soldiers in disputing the 
passage of Cornwallis's army at Cowan's Ford, in 
February, 1781, when the lamented Davidson was 
slain, and aided in burying his body by torchlight in 
the graveyard at Hopewell. Mr. Barry was long a 
ruling elder in Hopewell Church. The first sermon 
by a Presbyterian clergyman in that section of the 
county was preached under the shade of a tree at 
the side of his house. His death occurred August 
21, 1801, in the 75th year of his age. 

JOHN FLENNIKIN 

James and John Flennikin, descendants from 
Scotch-Irish ancestors, were among the early settlers 
of that race in Pennsylvania. They had nine chil- 
dren, of whom John Flennikin, the subject of this 
sketch, was the seventh, born in Pennsylvania, 
March 7, 1744. The family early migrated to 
Mecklenburg, and settled on the waters of McAlpin's 
Creek, in what is now Sharon Township. John 
Flennikin seems to have had a fair education, but 
beyond his service as a member of the Mecklenburg 
Convention of May, 1775, and many years as a 
magistrate and member of the County Court, we 
have no record. His life was one mainly of peaceful 
pursuits. He lived to a good old age, when he was 
thrown from his horse on his way to church and 
killed, and his remains mingle with the dust of Provi- 
dence burial ground. His brother, David Flennikin, 



Declaration of Independence 123 

served under Colonel Irwin and General Sumter at 
the battle of Hanging- Rock, where he was wounded, 
and carried to the hospital at Charlotte. He long 
enjoyed a pension for the wounds he received in 
the service, and died April 26th, 1826, in the 78th 
year of his age, and was buried in Providence grave- 
yard. Both of the brothers left numerous and 
worthy descendants. 

WILLIAM GRAHAM 

But little can be gathered of this delegate to the 
Mecklenburg Convention of May, 1775. His was 
a farmer's life, quietly spent in his calling, and he 
left behind him few evidences of his public career. 
He was an Irishman and early settled in Mecklen- 
burg County. He was useful in his day, serving, 
it is believed, in the army. He died at an advanced 
age in 1820 or 1822, near Davidson College. 

MATTHEW M'CLURE 

i 
In the north of Ireland and about 1725, was 
Matthew McClure born, where he married; then 
came to America and settled in Mecklenburg about 
1 75 1, five miles south of Davidson College. It is an 
evidence of his worth that he was chosen one of the 
delegates to the Mecklenburg Convention of May, 
1775. It is not known that he filled any other public 
position. His home was a rendezvous for the 
patriots of his section. In January, 1782, the 
County Court ordered that no person in Charlotte, 



124 The Mecklenburg 

or within two miles of the place, should be permitted 
to sell any spiritous liquors, so long as the hospital 
was continued in that town, and employed Matthew 
McClure to take possession of all such contraband 
liquors for the use of the hospital, or as the com- 
manding officer should direct. Too old himself to 
enter active service in the field, his sons were much 
engaged in the army. 

JOHN QUEARY 

A native of Scotland, John Queary first migrated 
to Pennsylvania, and then to Mecklenburg some 
years before the Revolution. As early as January, 
1770, we find Mr. Queary residing in what was 
called for a time Clear Creek, now Philadelphia, in 
the bounds of Rocky River, and was an elder in that 
church. 

Of his Revolutionary service, save that he was a 
member of the Mecklenburg Convention of May, 
1775, nothing is known. He is represented as a 
man of strong and vigorous intellect, and a good 
scholar, especially in mathematics; accumulating 
means to a moderate extent ; died at an early period. 
He is buried in what was once Mecklenburg, now 
Union County. 

EZRA ALEXANDER 

All that can be stated of Mr. Alexander in 
addition to his having been a delegate to the Meck- 
lenburg Convention of May, 1775, is that he headed 



Declaration of Independence 125 

a company in June and July, 1780, in Col. W. L. 
Davidson's command, during the Tory rising at 
Ramsour's Mill, and in the affair near Calson's Mill 
with a body of Tories while in pursuit of Bryan's 
party, and the next month served in Capt. John 

Brownfield's company of Regiment at the 

battle of Hanging Rock. (MS. Letters of Dr. C. L. 
Hunter, September 21, 1775.) He died in the 
summer of 1800, at an advanced age. 

WAIGHTSTILL AVERY 

The Avery family trace a Hungarian origin. 
Capt. James Avery, of Devonshire, England, came 
over with Winthrop's company in 1630, only ten 
years after the Mayflozuer, first settling at Glou- 
cester; then in 1651 at New London, Conn., and 
shortly after at Groton. From him descended 
Waightstill Avery, the subject of this sketch, who 
was born in Groton May 3, 1743. He graduated at 
Princeton College in 1766, where he remained a 
tutor for a year. Then removing to Maryland, he 
studied law for about a year and a half under the 
direction of Littleton Dennis, where early in 1769 
he set out for North Carolina. 

Selecting Mecklenburg for his home, he domiciled 
with Hezekiah Alexander at the moderate rate of 
£12 (twelve pounds) per eight months. 

In 1 77 1 he was made prisoner by the Regulators 
at Yadkin Ferry, and carried to their camp in the 
woods. They gave him a flogging and soon set him 
at liberty. When the great war came he was pre- 



126 The Mecklenburg 

pared to meet it. In such an atmosphere as Meck- 
lenburg, he could only learn to breathe the purest 
sentiments of patriotism. In the Mecklenburg Con- 
vention in May, 1775, he filled an honored place. 
He was most probably associated with Brevard and 
Kennon on the committee that reported the mem- 
orable Resolves of May 20th, and could scarcely 
have kept silent in enforcing their adoption by his 
talents and persuasive powers of eloquence. He 
was a "shrewd lawyer," said Prof. F. M. Hubbard, 
"whose integrity, no less than his deliberate wisdom, 
made his counsels weighty." 

Jones, in his "Revolutionary Defense of North 
Carolina," states that Brevard and Avery, with their 
classical attainments, with the native talent and 
enthusiasm of Thomas Polk, produced the Meck- 
lenburg Declaration. He was returned one of the 
Mecklenburg representatives to the North Carolina 
Provincial Congress of August and September, 
1775, when he was chosen one of the two members 
for the Salisbury District of Provincial Council of 
Safety. The Council held two sessions that year, 
one in October and one in December. 

He was dispatched, in behalf of the Council, to 
purchase from the South Carolina Committee of 
Safety 2,000 pounds of powder for the use of the 
Province, and was also appointed one of the com- 
mittee for the District of Salisbury to purchase 
materials and to employ proper persons to make and 
repair guns and bayonets, and purchase guns, lead, 
and flints. In April, 1776, he was appointed chair- 
man of four commissioners by the Provincial Con- 



Declaration of Independence 127 

gress to erect salt works and manufacture salt for 
the use of the public, which proved successful and 
of great importance. 

He was in this year, 1777, appointed one of the 
trustees of Liberty Hall Academy at Charlotte, and 
was also chosen one of the two members to represent 
Mecklenburg in the House of Commons, and served 
on the committee to revise the whole body of the 
public laws of the State. On the 12th of January, 
1778, he was commissioned Attorney-General of the 
State. 

To the last his was the costume of the Revolu- 
tion — short breeches, long waistcoats, silk stockings, 
and knee buckles — wearing his hair in a cue, and 
presenting altogether a singular appearance to the 
younger generation. Absent-mindedness was one 
of his peculiarities, of which his more intimate 
friends would take occasion to play off practical 
jokes at his expense. He was devoted to his friends 
and strong in his prejudices. He was very fond of 
his books and newspapers. He died in March, 1821. 

COL. WILLIAM KENNON 

The Kennons migrated from England and settled 
in Virginia about as early as 1660. Richard 
Kennon, with three associates, obtained a grant from 
the Colony of 2,827 acres in Henrico County, April 
1, 1670, and Elizabeth Kennon, perhaps the widow 
of Richard, April 24, 1703, secured a grant of 4,000 
acres in Henrico. Robert, William, and Richard 
Kennon, Jr., were the sons of this early couple. 



128 The Mecklenburg 

William Kennon, recorded as "Gentleman," between 
April 17, 1725, and November, 1750, obtained five 
grants of land in Henrico, aggregating 4,063, and 
one tract of 4,000 acres in Prince George County. 
(MS. Letters of R. A. Brock, Corresponding Secre- 
tary Virginia Historical Society, September 13, 

1875-) 

He was probably there on professional business, 
and was invited as a matter of courtesy to a seat in 
the Convention in Charlotte May 20, 1775. 

COL. JAMES HARRIS 

According to the late Hon. W. S. Harris, an 
intelligent chronicler of the family, the Harris con- 
nection of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus were of 
Scotch-Irish stock, natives of Harrisburg, Penn., 
who emigrated first to Cecil County, Maryland, and 
in 1740 to North Carolina. The facts are that 
James Harris, a native of Yorkshire, England, first 
settled on the Susquehanna in 1719. But Harris- 
burg was not laid out as a town till sixty-five years 
after. A grandson of the first settler bore the name 
of Robert, a family name among the North Carolina 
Harrises. An immediate descendant of Col. James 
Harris states that he was a native of Wales, born 
April 3, 1739, but the probabilities are that he was 
of Welsh descent, and a native of Pennsylvania. 
He early settled on Clear Creek, in Mecklenburg 
County. He proved himself a leader among the 
people, and was chosen a delegate to the Mecklen- 
burg Convention of May, 1775. In June, 1780, we 



Declaration of Independence 129 

find him serving as major of Colonel Irwin's regi- 
ment, and marching against the Tories at Ramsour's, 
who were defeated a little before the arrival of the 
rear under General Rutherford and Colonel Irwin. 
He was subsequently promoted to be colonel. 

In 1785 he was chosen to represent Mecklenburg 
in the State Senate, a high honor in a region where 
there were so many able and worthy men. His 
death occurred September 27, 1797, in the 59th year 
of his age. He is* represented as a very rich man, 
quiet in his demeanor, provident and successful, and 
a member of the Presbyterian denomination. Some 
of his descendants reside in Texas. His younger 
brother, Samuel Harris, a soldier of the Revolution, 
lived till he was 80 years old. Another brother, 
Robert Harris, will receive a special notice. 

DAVID REESE 

David Reese, a native of Wales, was among the 
Protestant emigrants who were induced to settle in 
Ireland. He was a Presbyterian preacher, and took 
part in the terrible siege of Londonderry, which 
lasted eight months, on scanty allowance. He sub- 
sequently returned to Wales, where his son, David 
Reese, was born in 17 10, and came to America when 
a lad about 15 years old. He settled in Pennsyl- 
vania, where in due time he married Susan Polk, a 
near relative of Thomas and Ezekiel Polk, where 
their son Thomas was born in 1742, who subse- 
quently became a distinguished clergyman in the 
Presbyterian Church. About 1750 David Reese 



130 The Mecklenburg 

emigrated, with his young family, and located in 
Poplar Tent settlement of the Catawba country. 

Well educated for his day, he became a prominent 
man among the early settlers, and was chosen one 
of a bench of Poplar Tent Church elders in 1751. 
Waightstill Avery, in Diary of September, 1767, 
records: "Went to David Reese's, plotted a piece 
of land for him," and "wrote a deed for him to his 
son" ; which would indicate wealth in the rich land 
of the country. He is one of the reputed delegates 
to the Mecklenburg Convention of May, 1775; was 
long a magistrate and member of the County Court. 

Though too old to take the field, he was appointed 
by the Provincial Congress of April, 1776, with 
Thomas, to procure, purchase, and receive firearms 
for the use of the troops of Mecklenburg. He lived 
to see his country free and happy. His will bears 
date of February 5, 1787, and was admitted to pro- 
bate in September following. He must have died 
not long before the latter date, at the age of about 
yy years. His remains lie buried in Poplar Tent 
burial ground, in an unknown grave. 

"He was a born statesman," writes Hon. W. S. 
Harris, and "one of the best of men." He was 
commanding in appearance, fine looking, with bright, 
black eyes. 

HENRY DOWNS 

Of Scotch-Irish descent, Henry Downs was born 
in 1728, probably in Pennsylvania, and early settled 
in Providence settlement, which subsequently became 
a part of Mecklenburg. 



Declaration of Independence 131 

{ 
Of his public career we only know that he was 

one of the reputed delegates to the famous Mecklen- 
burg Convention. He lived to see his country free, 
and to enjoy the blessings of a well-spent life. He 
died October 8, 1798, at the age of 70 years, and 
was buried in Providence burial ground, 12 miles 
south of Charlotte. One correspondent speaks of 
"Henry Downs of precious memory,'' indicative of 
his worthy character, and the good name he left 
behind him. His sons, Thomas and Samuel Downs, 
were well known in their day, and their descendants 
are quite numerous in the Mecklenburg region. 

JOHN FOARD 

There was a John Foard in Somerset County, on 
the eastern shore of Maryland, a Presbyterian elder, 
as early as 1710, mentioned in the first stories of 
Foote's Sketches of Virginia. As that region fur- 
nished many of the early settlers of Mecklenburg, 
it is most probable that the John Foard of Mecklen- 
burg was descended from that Maryland Presby- 
terian family of the same name. 

As early as January 27, 1770, he is found among 
the members of Clear Creek congregation. He is 
said to have been one of the delegates to the Meck- 
lenburg Convention of May, 1775, and long served 
as a magistrate and member of the County Court. 
He served as a private in Col. Charles Polk's 
Dragoons in the fall of 1781, on the Raft Swamp 
expedition. His will bears date of April 25, 1798, 
and he probably died not long after this period. 



132 The Mecklenburg 

Mr. Harris represents him as a worthy and good 
man, possessing great courage. He lived and died 
in that part of Mecklenburg which now forms Union 
County. There are none of his lineal descendants 
remaining in the old Mecklenburg region, but a 
good many kindred bear his name. 

CHARLES ALEXANDER 

Of this member of the numerous Alexander 
family, little is known save that he was one of the 
reputed delegates to the Mecklenburg Convention of 
May, 1775. He lived on the line from Waxhaw to 
Charlotte. He was a gallant and true patriot, and 
unlike most of his Alexander kindred, he was an 
unbeliever in the Christian religion. His death took 
place in 1801. He had a grandson recently deceased, 
who was an officer and soldier in the war with 
Mexico. 

ROBERT HARRIS, SR. 

In the notice of Col. James Harris, a brother of 
the subject of this sketch, it was stated that he was 
descended from Welsh ancestry, and was probably 
a native of Pennsylvania. 

Robert Harris, born about 1741, is also supposed 
to have been born in that State, and certain it is that 
the family connection included probably the parents 
and their sons, James, Robert, Samuel, Charles, and 
Thomas, and an only sister, who became the wife of 
Rev. Thomas Reese, early migrated to the Catawba 
Valley. Hon. W. S. Harris, who descended from 



Declaration of Independence 133 

Charles, fixed the period of their migration in 1740; 
but it was probably a few years later, else some of 
the brothers and the sister must have been born in 
Mecklenburg County. The venerable Rev. N. R. 
Morgan and lady, the latter a granddaughter of 
Robert Harris, thinks he came to North Carolina 
with the early crowd of emigrants from Pennsyl- 
vania or Maryland. 

As early as May, 1771, he was chosen an elder of 
Poplar Tent Church. (The Robert Harris of this 
sketch should not be confounded with the Col. 
Robert Harris, of Reed Creek, referred to in Foote's 
"Sketches of North Carolina," page 480.) < Rev. 
Humphrey Hunter included the name of Richard 
Harris, Sr., among the list of delegates to the Meck- 
lenburg Convention, which the Legislative Com- 
mittee in the State pamphlet of 1831 adopted in 
the second organized list of bona fide members. 

Lossing, in his "Field Book of the Revolution," 
corrects the apparent error of Richard Harris and 
substitutes the name of Robert Harris. "It is sur- 
prising," writes W. S. Harris, who lived all his life 
in that region, and one of the best chroniclers in that 
section of country, "that such an error should have 
been committed, and the name given as Richard ; it 
is a mistake. I know that the name should have 
been Robert Harris." 

It is due to truth to say that Rev. N. R. Morgan 
and lady, the latter his granddaughter, who remem- 
bered him personally, state that they never under- 
stood that that Robert Harris was one of the famous 
Mecklenburg delegates. 



134 The Mecklenburg 

In view of his services and sufferings, a grant of 
5,000 acres of land was donated to him in Tennessee, 
which was neglected for many years, but finally 
secured by his descendants, proving of great value 
to them. He became the possessor of a large body 
of land around what is now known as Harris's 
Station, on the North Carolina Railroad, in Cabarrus 
County. The mill he built on Rocky River, the dam 
of which is solid rock, still stands and continues to 
be known as Harris's Mill. 



MAJ. JOHN DAVIDSON 

Robert Davidson and wife, Ma*y Ramsay, of 
Dundee, Scotland, became early settlers of Chestnut 
Level, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where their 
son, John Davidson, was born December 15, 1735. 
With respectable education, and reared to the occu- 
pation of a farmer, and while yet a young man, about 
1 760, he migrated to the Catawba country, in North 
Carolina. 

Here he was united in marriage with Violet, 
daughter of Samuel Wilson, and sister to the wife 
of Ezekiel Polk, and settled on the Catawba near 
Tool's Ford. Such was his prominence that he was 
chosen, in conjunction with Capt. Thomas Polk, to 
represent Mecklenburg County in the Colonial Legis- 
lature in 1773. When such a man as John Davidson 
states positively that he was one of the members of 
the famous Mecklenburg Convention of May, 1775, 
chosen in his captain's company, with John McKnitt 
Alexander as his coadjutor, no one has ever called 



Declaration of Independence 135 

this claim into question. It should stand as one of 
the fixed facts of history. How Dr. M. Winslow 
Alexander, in making up his list of delegates in 
1824, should have omitted him, then being a ven- 
erable survivor of the Revolution and sustaining the 
highest character, with Gen. Joseph Graham among 
his honored sons-in-law, and how the Legislative 
Committee of 1831 should have ignored his claim to 
that undoubted honor and placed other names of 
doubtful import in their recognized list of delegates, 
is not the least of many strange things connected 
with this Mecklenburg matter. An intelligent gen- 
tleman states that his grandfather, Major Davidson, 
rode home the night after the declaration was made, 
fourteen miles, taking by-paths for fear of being 
killed by the enemy, when in truth there were no 
British soldiers within hundreds of miles of Meck- 
lenburg in May, 1775; no Tories, of whom there 
were few in that region at any time, had shown 
themselves in hostile array. The Indians were still 
peaceful on the frontiers and remained so for more 
than a year later, and no Redcoats trod the soil of 
Mecklenburg till after Cornwallis forced himself 
there in September, 1780. 

In September, 1775, he was appointed second 
major of Colonel Polk's regiment, and doubtless 
went with the regiment on the Snow Campaign at 
the close of the year against the Tory insurgents in 
the region of Ninety-Six, South Carolina. He was 
promoted to first major of Mecklenburg militia 
under Col. Adam Alexander and Lieutenant Phifer 
in April, 1776, and in the spring of that year, then 



136 The Mecklenburg 

in the summer and fall of the same year, he went on 
Rutherford's campaign against the Cherokees. No 
particulars are mentioned of his other services. The 
remainder of his long life he continued to reside at 
his old homestead on the Catawba until the death 
of his wife and marriage of his children, when, in 
1824, he went to reside with his daughter, Mrs. W. 
Lee Davidson, near Davidson College, where he 
closed his long and useful life January 10, 1832, in 
the 97th year of his age, and was buried in the family 
burying ground at his former home, a spot selected 
by himself, near Tool's Ford, on the Catawba. 

COL. EZEKIEL POLK 

Captain Jack included in his list of those "who 
appeared to take the lead" in the Mecklenburg move- 
ment of May, 1775, Col. Ezekiel Polk, Samuel 
Martin, William Wilson, and Duncan Ochiltree; 
and Lossing has given the names of the three latter 
in his enumeration of the delegates. They were all 
doubtless prominent actors among the people on the 
interesting occasion. . Of William Polk's eight chil- 
dren, a sketch of Col. Thomas Polk, the eldest, has 
already been given. Ezekiel was the youngest, born 
in Pennsylvania, December 7, 1747. "Pennsylvania 
born, and Carolina bred," as he himself composed in 
evidence for his tombstone, would imply that when 
quite young he followed the fortunes of his brothers 
to Carolina, and was mostly raised, or bred, as he 
preferred to term it. Of his youthful days, nothing 
is remembered. 



Declaration of Independence 137 

He early married Mary Wilson, a sister to the 
wife of Maj. John Davidson. In 1769 he was clerk 
of the Court of Tryon County— territory from which 
Lincoln and Rutherford have since been formed. 

In 1778, Colonel Polk removed into Mecklenburg 
County, eleven miles south of Charlotte, where his 
son, James K. Polk,* was born. This was a period 
of quiet in this region, and remained so until Corn- 
wallis's invasion in September, 1780. There was no 
regular army then, after Gates's defeat, to protect 
the county. When Cornwallis reached Colonel 
Polk's, on Sugar Creek, in order to save the burning 
of his home, the destruction of his property, and 
the suffering of his family, he was forced to take 
British protection, which merely was understood to 
protect himself, family and property from molesta- 
tion, without implying any pledge for sympathy or 
service. 

CAPT. JAMES JACK 

The bearer of the Mecklenburg Resolves of May, 
1775, to Philadelphia— Capt. James Jack— was of 
Irish descent, born in Pennsylvania in 1739, whence 
he removed to North Carolina, and settled in Char- 
lotte eight or ten years before the commencement of 
the Revolutionary War. He married Margaret 
Houston, and was long a popular hotel keeper in 
Charlotte. He took a decided and active part in 
the Revolutionary War. He probably served under 
Col. Thomas Polk on the Snow Campaign in 1775. 

*James K. Polk was the son of Samuel Polk, and grand- 
son of Ezekiel Polk.— Editor. 



138 The Mecklenburg 

His large acquaintance with the people enabled him 
to raise a company of men, whom he led forth on 
Rutherford's Cherokee campaign in 1776. He was 
with the troops embodied who opposed Cornwallis 
when he entered Charlotte in September, 1781. 
Captain Jack also led his company in General Polk's 
brigade in April, 1781, joining General Greene at 
Rugeby's Mills, and serving a three months' tour of 
duty. The particulars of other services of Captain 
Jack are not preserved. It is only known that he 
was ever ready for service, and was so popular with 
his company that they induced him not to seek or 
accept the promotions, which indeed he did not 
desire. In a certificate extracted by Colonel Abra- 
ham and Hezekiah Alexander, December 24, 1781, 
it is stated that Captain Jack had resided several 
years in Mecklenburg County, was a good and 
worthy member of society, both civil and religious, 
and since the beginning of the war had always con- 
ducted himself as a patriot and as an officer in such 
a manner as to evince his honest zeal and attachment 
to the cause of his country. The close of the war 
left him poor. He had freely advanced all he 
possessed in the great struggle, a portion of it as a 
loan to North Carolina. His unrequited claims at 
the time of his death upon North Carolina amounted 
to £7,446 State currency. In 1783, Captain Jack 
removed to Georgia, settling in Wilkes County. 



Declaration of Independence 139 

rev. francis cummings, d. d. 

A child of Irish parentage, Mr. Cummings was 
born near Shippenburg, Penna., in the spring of 
1752. In his 19th year his parents moved to Meck- 
lenburg County, and young Cummings exchanged 
his former life for the classic halls of the Queen's 
Museum in Charlotte, where he was an eye-witness 
of the Mecklenburg Convention of May, 1775, con- 
cerning which he furnished a certificate, and also 
gave some account in a published sermon. He 
graduated at Queen's Museum about 1776, and spent 
several years teaching. Among his pupils in Bethel, 
York County, South Carolina, was Andrew Jackson, 
afterwards President, and William Smith, a United 
States Senator from South Carolina. 

When licensed to preach he occupied various 
pulpits at Hopewell, Bethel, and other places. In 
1788, while residing at Bethel, he was chosen by the 
people of York County a member of the South 
Carolina Convention for deciding upon the Consti- 
tution of the United States. Mr. Cummings was at 
various periods the pastor of some twenty congre- 
gations, some in North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Georgia, dividing his time between teaching and 
preaching. 

His last sermon was preached January 15, 1832, 
and three days later he was seized with influenza, 
which terminated his life at Greensboro, Ga., on 
the 2d of the ensuing February, in the 80th year of 
his age. He left behind him a good name and many 
descendants. 



140 The Mecklenburg 

gen. joseph graham 

A native of Pennsylvania, Joseph Graham was 
born October 13, 1759. His widowed mother in 
1766 removed with her five children to North 
Carolina, settling in the vicinity of Charlotte, where 
Joseph received the most of his education. He was 
present during the meeting of the famous Mecklen- 
burg Convention, and his reminiscences concerning 
it are not only the most detailed of any preserved, 
but the most important in citing facts connected with 
the Resolves which, when those of May 20th were 
subsequently discovered, go to substantiate that they 
were the real and only Resolves adopted by the 
people of Mecklenburg in May, 1775. 

In May, 1778, when 19 years old, he enlisted in 
the Fourth Regiment of the North Carolina line, 
and marched into Caswell County, and was sub- 
sequently furloughed home; but in August was 
ordered to South Carolina, and then to Georgia ; was 
in the battle of Stono, June 20, 1779, and soon after 
discharged. The next year he was appointed adju- 
tant of the Mecklenburg regiment, and when the 
British army, under Lord Cornwallis, invaded the 
country in September, 1780, he was ordered by 
General Davidson to take command of such of the 
inhabitants as should collect in Charlotte on the news 
of the enemy's approach, who amounted to fifty in 
number. When the British entered Charlotte, Sep- 
tember 26th, Major Davis and Captain Graham 
made a daring resistance, brief, but unavailing. 
They were compelled to retreat, but resisted as they 



Declaration of Independence 141 

retired. In one of the enemy's charges, Graham 
received nine wounds, six from the sabre and three 
from bullets. His stock buckles probably prevented 
one of the cuts upon his neck from fatally wounding 
him. As it was, he ever afterwards bore marks of 
the severity of the blow aimed at his life. Four 
deep sabre gashes scarred his head and one his side. 
He was left for dead when the enemy departed, and 
with difficulty crawled to some water near by, where, 
slaking his intolerable thirst, he washed his numer- 
ous painful wounds as well as he could. 

For a time he expected to die unnoticed in this 
secluded spot, but by night was discovered by kind- 
hearted people who were in search of their wounded 
countrymen, and conveyed to a neighboring house 
of a widow. Here he was concealed in an upper 
room and was attended by the widow and her 
daughter during the night, expecting he might soon 
die. Once he slept and breathed so quietly, and was 
so pale, they thought he was dead. The next day a 
British officer's wife, with a company of horsemen, 
visited the widow's house in quest of fresh pro- 
visions. By some means she discovered that there 
was a wounded person in the loft, and, pressing the 
inquiry, learned he was an officer and his wounds 
severe, and kindly offered to send a British surgeon 
to dress his wounds as soon as she should reach the 
camp at Charlotte. Alarmed at his discovery and 
dreading to fall into the hands of the enemy, he 
rallied all his powers and caused himself to be placed 



142 The Mecklenburg 

on horseback the ensuing night and taken to his 
mother's, and not long after to the hospital. Three 
balls were taken from his body. 

GEN. GEORGE GRAHAM 

Nearly two years the senior of his brother, Joseph, 
whose career has just been sketched, George Graham 
was also a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1758, 
and when some nine years of age was brought to 
Mecklenburg County by his widowed mother, and 
educated at the Queen's Museum Academy at Char- 
lotte, and became strongly imbued with the repub- 
lican principles of the Scotch-Irish of that region. 
He was one of the party of young patriots who rode 
from Charlotte to Salisbury early in June, 1775, and 
arrested Dunn and Boothe, a couple of prominent 
Tory lawyers who proposed to detain Captain Jack 
when on his way to Philadelphia with the Resolves 
of the Mecklenburg Convention. He was active in 
harassing and thwarting the foraging parties of the 
enemy when Cornwallis lay at Charlotte, and one of 
the gallant fourteen who dared to attack, October 3, 
1780, and actually drove a British foraging party of 
450 infantry, 60 cavalry, and about 40 wagons, 
under Major Doyle, at Mclntire's, seven miles north 
of Charlotte. 

Capt. James Thompson commanded this daring 
party of Mecklenburgers. Two hundred yards from 
Mclntire's was a thicket down a spring branch, to 
which Thompson and his party repaired. A point 
of rocky ridge, covered with bushes, passed obliquely 



Declaration of Independence 143 

from the road toward the spring, and within fifty 
steps of the house, which sheltered them from view. 
From under this cover Thompson and party deployed 
into line ten or twelve feet apart, and advanced 
silently to their intended position. The British were 
much out of order ; some in the barn throwing down 
oats for the horses, others racing after the pigs, 
ducks and chickens; a squad was robbing the bee 
hive, while others were pillaging the dwelling. A 
sentinel placed on watch, within a few steps of 
where the Americans were advancing, appeared to 
be alarmed, though he had not seen them. Captain 
Thompson fired the first shot and brought down the 
sentinel. This being the signal for the attack, each 
man, as he could get a view, took ready and delib- 
erate aim before he fired at the distance of 60 to 70 
steps. In two instances where two happened to aim 
at the same pillager, when the first fired and the 
fellow fell, the second had to change his aim and 
search for another object. 

The enemy immediately began to form and fire 
briskly. None of the Americans had time to load 
and fire the second time, except Captain Thompson 
and Bradley, who were the first to discharge their 
rifles. The last shot of Thompson's was aimed at 
the captain of the party at the barn, 150 steps distant, 
who died of the wound he received two days after- 
wards, at the house of Samuel McCombs, in Char- 
lotte. Thompson's party retreated through the 
thicket, which was nearly parallel to the great road, 



144 The Mecklenburg 

and only about one-half mile from it. The enemy 
continued to fire briskly and ceased about the time 
the Americans were half a mile away. 

The main body of the British under Major Doyle, 
who were in the rear, hearing the firing at Mclntire's, 
became alarmed and hurried to the support of their 
friends. Captain Thompson's party now loaded 
their rifles, ascended the creek bottom, deployed, as 
before, under cover of a high bank parallel with the 
road, and about 40 rods from it. They had not been 
long at this station before the enemy's advance, and 
some wagons, came on. They severally fired, taking, 
deliberate aim, and then retreated down the creek. 
When the front of the enemy's column arrived near 
the creek's ford, they formed and commenced a 
tremendous fire through the low ground, which 
continued till Thompson's army had retreated near 
a half mile. The cavalry at the same time divided, 
one-half passing down each side of the creek. 
Simultaneous with this movement, six or seven 
hounds came in full cry on the track of the retreating 
Americans, and in about three-quarters of a mile 
came up with them. One of the dogs was shot, and 
the others seemed to comprehend the situation and 
made no further noise. The country being thickly 
covered with undergrowth, Thompson's men escaped 
unhurt. The British cavalry kept on their flank on 
the high ground until they reached the plantation of 
Robert Carr, Sr., where they appeared much enraged, 
and carried the old gentleman, though 70 years old, 
a prisoner to Charlotte. Major Doyle's party 
moved on from the ford of the creek and formed a 



Declaration of Independence 145 

junction with those at Mclntire's farm ; gathered up 
eight dead and twelve wounded, put them in their 
wagons and retreated to Charlotte in great haste. 
On their arrival they reported that they had found 
a rebel in every bush after passing seven miles in 
that direction. The names of those fourteen deserve 
to be perpetuated in Mecklenburg history, namely: 
Capt. James Thompson, George Graham, Frank 
Bradley (killed a few days after by four of Bryan's 
Tories), James Henry, Thomas and John Dickson, 
John Long, Robert and John Robinson, George and 
Hugh Theston, Thomas McClure, and Edward and 
George Shipley. It is believed that during the 
whole war the enemy did not sustain so great a loss 
nor meet with so complete a disappointment in his 
objects by such a mere handful of men. That out of 
30 shots fired, 20 should have done execution, is 
quite a new experience in the history of war, and 
several of Thompson's men thought that every shot 
would have told, so deliberate was their aim, had 
each singled out a different object; but in two or 
more instances, aiming at the same person. (Gen. 
Joseph Graham's narrative in North Carolina Uni- 
versity Magazine, March, 1836.) 



APPENDIX 

Documents Cited in Preceding Address 

Martin's Preface 



"Imperfect as the present publication is, it began 
to engage the attention of the writer as early as the 
year 1791 ; at that period, the legislature of North 
Carolina afforded him some aid, in the publication of 
a collection of the statutes of the parliament of Eng- 
land, then in force and use within that state. In pre- 
paring that work, he examined all the statutes from 
Magna Charta to the Declaration of Independence, 
and an arrangement of all those which related to 
America, afforded him a complete view of the colo- 
nial system of England. In 1803 he was employed 
by the same legislature to publish a revisal of the 
acts of the general assembly, passed during the pro- 
prietary, royal and state governments, and the local 
information he acquired in carrying into effect the 
intentions of those who employed him, suggested 
the idea of collecting materials for a history of the 
state ; and when afterwards he had the honor of rep- 
resenting the town of Newbern in the house of 
commons, he was favored with a resolution of the 



Declaration of Independence 147 

general assembly, authorizing the secretary of state 
to allow him access to the records of his office. In 
the speeches of the governors, at the opening of the 
sessions of the legislature, he found a reference to 
the principal transactions during recess, and there 
were few important events, particularly relating to 
the state, which left no trace on the journals of the 
legislature, or the proceedings of the executive. 

"During several journeys, which he afterwards 
made to several parts of the country, he received con-^ 
siderable information from individuals. Mr. George 
Pollock of Newbern, confided to him an official let- 
ter book, and several documents left by one of his 
ancestors, who came to the county of Albemarle, in 
the latter part of the seventeenth century, and who, 
in the beginning of the following, exercised the 
functions of chief magistrate over the northern part 
of Carolina. The late governor Johnson, a nephew 
of Gabriel Johnson, who presided over the affairs of 
the province from the year 1734 to 1754; governor 
Smith, who was in possession of the papers of pres- 
ident Rowan, and governor Ashe, whose ancestors 
were among the earliest settlers of the country, 
afforded considerable materials. The gentlemen in 
possession of the records of the Quaker meetings, 
in Perquimans and Pasquotank counties, and the 
head of the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Brethren, 
cheerfully yielded their assistance. 

"A citizen of North Carolina, being a citizen of 
the United States, has a right to expect, in a history 
of his own state, some notice, not only of the settle- 
ment of, but also of the most prominent events that 



148 The Mecklenburg 

took place in the sister states ; and as the affairs of 
the mother country have necessarily a considerable 
influence on those of her colonies, the principal wars, 
in which England was engaged, must necessarily be 
noticed in the history of any of her American prov- 
inces. Under these impressions, the necessary infor- 
mation, in this respect, was sought in the most 
approved publications. 

"The writer imagined, he had collected sufficient 
material to justify the hope of producing a history 
of North Carolina, worth the attention of his fellow 
citizens, and he had arranged all those that related 
to transactions, anterior to the declaration of inde- 
pendence, when, in 1809, Mr. Madison thought his 
services were wanted, first in the Mississippi terri- 
tory and afterwards in that of Orleans; and when 
the latter territory became a state, the new govern- 
ment thought proper to retain him. 

"He had entertained the hope, that the time would 
arrive when disengaged from public duties, he might 
resume the work he had commenced in Carolina ; but 
years have rolled away, without bringing this 
period ; and a shock his health lately received during 
the year of his great climacteric, has warned him, 
that the moment is arrived when his intended work 
must engage his immediate attention, or be abso- 
lutely abandoned. 

"A circumstance, for some time, recommended the 
latter alternative. The public prints stated, that a 
gentleman of known industry and great talents, who 
has filled a very high office in North Carolina, was 



Declaration of Independence 149 

engaged in a similar work; but several years have 
elapsed since, and nothing favors the belief that the 
hopes which he excited, will soon be realized. 

"This gentleman had made application for the 
materials now published, and they would have been 
forwarded to him, if they had been in a condition of 
being useful to any but him who had collected them. 
In their circuitous way from Newbern to New York 
and New Orleans, the sea water found its way to 
them : since their arrival, the mice, worms, and a 
variety of insects of humid and warm climate, have 
made great ravages among them. The ink of several 
very ancient documents has grown so pale, as to ren- 
der them nearly illegible, and notes hastily taken on a 
journey, are in so cramped a hand, that they are not 
to be deciphered by any person but he who made 
them. 

"The determination has been taken to put the 
work immediately to press in the condition it was 
when it reached New Orleans: this has prevented 
any use being made of Williamson's History of 
North Carolina, a copy of which did not reach the 
writer's hands till after his arrival in Louisiana. 

"The expectation is cherished, that the people of 
North Carolina will receive, with indulgence a work, 
ushered to light under circumstances so untoward. 

"Very ample notes and materials are ready for a 
volume, relating to the events of the revolutionary 
war, and another, detailing subsequent transactions, 
till the writer's departure from Newbern, in 1809. 



150 The Mecklenburg 

If God yield him life and health, and his fellow citi- 
zens in North Carolina appear desirous these should 
follow the two volumes now presented to them, it is 
not improbable they will appear. 

"Gentilly, near New Orleans, 
"July 20, 1829." 



Pamphlet Issued by the Legislature of North 
Carolina, 1831 



"the declaration of independence 

'By the Citizens of Mecklenburg County, on the 
twentieth day of May, 177$, with accompany- 
ing documents, published by the Governor, 
under the authority and direction of 
the General Assembly of the 
State of North Carolina. 



PREFACE 



"The resolution of the General Assembly direct- 
ing this publication, makes it the duty of the Gov- 
ernor to cause to be published in pamphlet form the 
Report of the Committee relative to the Declaration 
of Independence, and the accompanying documents, 
in the following order, viz: I. The Mecklenburg 
Declaration with the names of the Delegates compos- 
ing the meeting. 2. The certificates testifying to the 
circumstances attending the Declaration ; 3. The pro- 
ceedings of the Cumberland Association. 



152 The Mecklenburg 

"In the discharge of this duty, the Governor has 
deemed it proper to prefix to the publication the fol- 
lowing brief review of the evidence by which the 
authenticity of this interesting portion of the history 
of North Carolina is controverted and sustained. 

"On the 30th of April, 1819, the publication 
marked A made its appearance in the Raleigh Regis- 
ter. It was communicated to the editors of that 
paper by Dr. Joseph McKnitt, then and now a citizen 
of the county of Mecklenburg, and was speedily 
republished in most of the newspapers in the Union. 
A paper containing it (the Essex Register) was, it 
seems, on the 226. June, 18 19, enclosed to Mr. Jeffer- 
son, by his illustrious compatriot, John Adams, 
accompanied with the remark, that he thought it 
genuine ; and this suggestion of Mr. Adams elicited 
the following reply, which was at that time pub- 
lished in various newspapers, and has been since 
given to the world in the 4th volume of Mr. Jeffer- 
son's Works, page 314: 

"TO JOHN ADAMS 

" 'Monticello, July 9, 18 19. 

" 'Dear Sir, — I am in debt to you for your letters 
of May the 21st, 27th, and June the 22nd. The first, 
delivered me by Mr. Greenwood, gave me the grati- 
fication of his acquaintance ; and a gratification it 
always is, to be made acquainted with gentleman of 
candor, worth, and information, as I found Mr. 
Greenwood to be. That on the subject of Mr. 



Declaration of Independence 153 

Samuel Adams Wells, shall not be forgotten in time 
and place, when it can be used to his advantage. 

" 'But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is 
the paper from Mecklenburg County, of North Car- 
olina, published in the Essex Register, which you 
were so kind as to enclose in your last, of June the 
22nd. And you seem to think it genuine. I believe it 
spurious. I deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, 
like that of the volcano, so minutely related to us as 
having broken out in North Carolina, some half 
dozen years ago, in that part of the country, and per- 
haps in that very county of Mecklenburg, for I do 
not remember its precise locality. If this paper be 
really taken from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I 
wonder it should have escaped Ritchie, who culls 
what is good from every paper, as the bee from every 
flower ; and the National Intelligencer, too, which is 
edited by a North Carolinian; and that the fire 
should blaze out all at once in Essex, one thousand 
miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. 
But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is 
the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it 
as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an 
original book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who 
is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hewes, and 
Hooper all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, 
and another sent to Doctor Williamson, now proba- 
bly dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the his- 
tory he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic 
step of its county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is 
silent in his history of Marion, whose scene of action 
was the country bordering on Mecklenburg. Ram- 



154 The Mecklenburg 

say, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, historians of 
the adjacent States, all silent. When Mr. Henry's 
resolutions, far short of independence, flew like 
lightning through every paper, and kindled both 
sides of the Atlantic, this flaming declaration of the 
same date, of the independence of Mecklenburg 
County, of North Carolina, absolving it from the 
British allegiance, and abjuring all political connec- 
tion with that nation, although sent to Congress, too, 
is never heard of. It is not known even a twelve- 
months after, when a similar proposition is first 
made in that body. Armed with this bold example, 
would not you have addressed our timid brethren in 
peals of thunder, on their tardy fears? Would not 
every advocate of independence have rung the glories 
of Mecklenburg County, in North Carolina, in the 
ears of the doubting Dickinson and others, who 
hung so heavily on us? Yet the example of 
independent Mecklenburg County, in North Caro- 
lina, was never once quoted. The paper speaks, too, 
of the continued exertions of their delegation (Cas- 
well, Hooper, Hewes) "in the cause of liberty and 
independence." Now, you remember as well as I 
do, that we had not a greater Tory in Congress than 
Hooper ; that Hewes was very wavering, sometimes 
firm, sometimes feeble, according as the day was 
clear or cloudy ; that Caswell, indeed, was a good 
Whig, and kept these gentlemen to the notch, while 
he was present; but that he left us soon, and their 
line of conduct became then uncertain until Penn 
came, who fixed Hewes and the vote of the State. 



Declaration of Independence 155 

1 must not be understood as suggesting any doubt- 
fulness in the State of North Carolina. No State 
was more fixed or forward. Nor do I affirm posi- 
tively that this paper is a fabrication, because the 
proof of a negative can only be presumptive. But 
I shall believe it such until positive and solemn 
proof of its authenticity shall be produced. And if 
the name of McKnitt be real, and not a part of the 
fabrication, it needs a vindication by the production 
of such proof. For the present, I must be an un- 
believer in the apocryphal gospel. 

" 'I am glad to learn that Mr. Ticknor has safely 
returned to his friends ; but should have been much 
more pleased had he accepted the Professorship in 
our University, which we should have offered him 
in form. Mr. Bowditch, too, refuses us; so fas- 
cinating is the vinculum of the duke natale solum. 
Our wish is to procure natives, where they can be 
found, like these gentlemen, of the first order of 
acquirement in their respective lines; but prefer- 
ring foreigners of the first order to the natives of 
the second, we shall certainly have to go, for several 
of our Professors, to countries more advanced in 
science than we are. 

" 'I set out within three or four days for my other 
home, the distance of which, and its cross mails, are 
great impediments to epistolary communications. I 
shall remain there about two months; and there, 
here, and every where, I am, and shall always be, 
affectionately and respectfully yours, 

" Th. Jefferson/ 



156 The Mecklenburg 

"The republication of this letter in a work which is 
intended for, and will go down to posterity, recom- 
mended alike by its intrinsic excellence, and the 
illustrious name of the author, has imposed upon 
the Legislature the task of proving that, with regard 
to this particular fact, Mr. Jefferson was mistaken, 
and that his opinion was made up from a very super- 
ficial and inaccurate examination of the publication 
in the Raleigh Register, the only evidence then 
before him, and upon which his letter is a commen- 
tary. 

"The letter itself was evidently written currente 
calamo, and for that reason may not be regarded 
as a fair subject for severe criticism. It is not in- 
tended to subject it to such a test, nor is it designed 
to examine it further than may be necessary to the 
ascertainment of truth. Of the ability, the purity, 
the patriotism of the author, it is unnecessary to 
speak. His love of country was not bounded by the 
confines of Virginia ; but it is no discredit to his 
memory that her institutions, her heroes, and her 
statesmen occupied the first place in his affections. 
She was emphatically 'the mother of great men/ 
and 'his own, his native land' ; and it is no mat- 
ter of surprise that he should be unwilling, without 
the most ample proof, to transfer the brightest page 
of her history to emblazon the records of a sister 
State. Mr. Wirt's 'Life of Patrick Henry' had just 
been published, and for the latter was claimed the 
high distinction of having been the first to give 
motion to the ball of the Revolution. Mr. Jefferson 



Declaration of Independence 157 

himself was the author of the Declaration of In- 
dependence by Congress, and was not disposed to 
share in any degree the immortality with which it 
had crowned him, with a comparatively obscure 
citizen of North Carolina; and, therefore, the evi- 
dence which was at once satisfactory to Mr. Adams, 
is by him pronounced 'to be a very unjustifiable 
quiz.' 

"The grounds for this opinion, in the order in 
which they are given to Mr. Adams, are, I. That the 
story is 'like that of the volcano* having broken out 
in that part of the country, and perhaps in that very 
county of Mecklenburg/ 2. Tf this paper be really 
taken from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I won- 
der it should have escaped Ritchie,' etc., 'and that 
the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, one 
thousand miles from where the spark is said to have 
fallen.' 3. 'But if really taken from the Raleigh 
Register, who is the narrator, and is the name sub- 
scribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself?' 
4. Tt appeals, too, to an original book, which is 
burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint 
letter from Caswell, Hewes and Hooper, all dead, 
to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent 
to Dr. Williamson, now probably dead, whose mem- 
ory did not recollect, in the history he has written 
of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county 
of Mecklenburg/ etc., etc. 

*"The hoax alluded to was published in 1812, and represented 
the volcano as having broken out in the neighborhood of the 
Warm Springs, in Buncombe, a point nearly as distant from the 
county of Mecklenburg as from Monticello. 



158 The Mecklenburg 

"Without further remark with regard to the first 
point — the quiz about the volcano — or the second, 
whether the 'spurious' paper was really published in 
the Raleigh Register, it is proper to say, in reply to 
the third argument, that the name subscribed is real, 
that the individual still lives, that he is moreover a 
credible witness, and that it is to his laudable atten- 
tion and exertions that the State is indebted for the 
preservation of much of the testimony which is now 
offered to the public. The fourth argument de- 
mands, and will receive more particular attention 
and examination. 

"The paper appeals to a book, which is burnt ; to 
Mr. Alexander, who is dead; to Messrs. Caswell, 
Hooper, and Hewes, all dead ; to a copy sent to 'the 
dead Caswell/ and another sent to Dr. William- 
son, probably dead, are the consecutive facts which 
Mr. Jefferson states, and on which he relies. Admit 
the premises, and the conclusion would be probable, 
though not inevitable; and a writer of much less 
ability, if permitted to assume his facts, might 
predicate upon them not only a very plausible, but an 
unanswerable argument. The very fact, however, 
on which Mr. Jefferson rests, as the climax of 
improbabilities, is not only not proved to exist, but, 
upon his own showing, does not exist ; and justifies 
the remark in the outset, that his letter was written 
in haste, upon a very superficial and imperfect view 
of the subject. The paper does not appeal 'to the 
dead Caswell/ but to the then living Davie, a 
native of the section of country in which the event 



Declaration of Independence 159 

occurred, like the former, a distinguished hero of 
the Revolution, and, in every respect, a proper 
depositary of the record. The following is the state- 
ment in question: (See the paper A.) ('The fore- 
going is a true copy of the papers, on the above sub- 
ject, left in my hands by John McKnitt Alexander, 
dec'd. I find it mentioned on file that the original 
book was burned April, 1800. That a copy of the 
proceedings was sent to Hugh Williamson,* in New 
York, then writing a history of North Carolina, and 
that a copy was sent to Gen. W. R. Davie.') Gen. 
Davie died shortly after the date of Mr. Jefferson's 
letter; but this identical copy, known by the writer 
of these remarks to be in the hand-writing of John 
McKnitt Alexander, one of the secretaries of the 
Mecklenburg meeting, is now in the Executive 
Office of this State. ( See Dr. Henderson's certificate, 
B. ) Caswell, Hooper, and Hewes are all dead ; but 
Capt. Jack, who was appointed to carry to them, at 
Philadelphia, this Mecklenburg Declaration, lived 
long enough to bear testimony to the truth ; and his 
\ statement (C) is circumstantial, explicit, and sat- 
\ is factory. If it needed confirmation, it would be 

*"This copy the writer well recollects to have seen in the pos- 
session of Dr. Williamson, in the year 1793, in Fayetteville, 
together with a letter to him from John McKnitt Alexander, 
and to have conversed with him on the subject. Why it is not 
mentioned in his history, is not strange to any one who knows 
the State, and has read the book. It cannot be regarded as a 
history of any country. The memorable Report and Resolu- 
tions of the Congress of April, 1776, are alike unnoticed. A 
correct and satisfactory account of both proceedings will be 
found in the last chapter of Martin's History of North Car- 
olina. 



160 The Mecklenburg 

found to be fully sustained by the interesting com- 
munication (D) of the late Rev. Francis Cummins, 
D.D., of Georgia, to the Hon. Nathaniel Macon. 
More satisfactory evidence, drawn from more 
respectable sources, Mr. Jefferson, if alive, could not 
and would not require. It is not hazarding too 
much to say, that there is no one event of the Revo- 
lution which has been, or can be more fully or clearly 
authenticated. 

"It is, perhaps, needless to multiply proofs, or to 
extend this article. Col. William Polk is a resident 
of this city, a venerable remnant of the Revolu- 
tionary stock, has passed the common boundary of 
human life, and in a green old age is in the full 
possession of his faculties. His compatriots, Cas- 
well, and Hooper, and Hewes, are dead, but he lives, 
was present, heard his father proclaim the Declara- 
tion to the assembled multitude; and need it be 
inquired, in any portion of this Union, if he will be 
believed? 

"The letter (E) of Gen. Joseph Graham, another 
surviving officer of the Revolution, a citizen and a 
soldier worthy of the best days of the Republic, will 
be read with pleasure and perfect confidence 
throughout the wide range of his acquaintance. 

"The extract from the memoir of the late Rev. 
Humphrey Hunter (F), of Lincoln, is equally 
explicit, full, and satisfactory. He, with several 
other respectable gentlemen, whose statements are 
appended, was an eye-witness of what he relates ; and 
the combined testimony of all these individuals 



Declaration of Independence 161 

prove the existence of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion, and all the circumstances connected with it, 
as fully and clearly as any fact can be shown by 
human testimony. 

"The following- extract from The Journal of the 
Provincial Congress of North Carolina, held at Hal- 
ifax, on the 4th April, 1776' (pp. 11, 12), shows 
that the first legislative recommendation of a 
Declaration of Independence by the Conti- 
nental Congress, originated likewise in the State 
of North Carolina. It is worthy of remark, that 
'John McKnitt Alexander, the Secretary of the 
meeting, Waight still Avery, John Phifer, and Robert 
Irzvin, who were conspicuous actors in the proceed- 
ings in Mecklenburg, were active and influential 
members of this Provincial Congress. 

" 'The select committee to take into consideration 
the usurpations and violences attempted and com- 
mitted by the King and Parliament of Britain 
against America, and the further measures to be 
taken for frustrating the same, and for the better 
defense of this Province, reported as follows, to wit : 

" Tt appears to your committee, that pursuant to 
the plan concerted by the British Ministry for subju- 
gating America, the King and Parliament of Great 
Britain have usurped a power over the persons and 
properties of the people unlimited and uncontrolled ; 
and disregarding their humble petitions of peace, lib- 
erty, and safety, have made divers legislative acts, 
denouncing war, famine, and every species of calam- 



162 The Mecklenburg 

ity, against the Continent in general. The British 
fleets and armies have been, and still are daily 
employed in destroying the people, and committing 
the most horrid devastations on the country. That 
Governors in different Colonies have declared pro- 
tection to slaves who should imbrue their hands in 
the blood of their masters. That the ships belonging 
to America are declared prizes of war, and many of 
them have been violently seized and confiscated. In 
consequence of all which multitudes of the people 
have been destroyed, or from easy circumstances 
reduced to the most lamentable distress. 

" 'And whereas the moderation hitherto mani- 
fested by the United Colonies, and their sincere 
desire to be reconciled to the mother country on con- 
stitutional principles, have procured no mitigation 
of the aforesaid wrongs and usurpations, and no 
hopes remain of obtaining redress by those means 
alone which have been hitherto tried, your commit- 
tee are of opinion that the House should enter into 
the following resolve, to wit : 

" 'Resolved, That the Delegates for this 
Colony in the Continental Congress be im- 
powered to concur with the delegates of the 
other Colonies in declaring Independency, 
and forming foreign alliances, reserving to this 
Colony the sole and exclusive right of forming a 
Constitution and laws for this Colony, and of 
appointing Delegates from time to time (under the 
direction of a general representation thereof), to 
meet the Delegates of the other Colonies, for such 
purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out. 



Declaration of Independence 163 

" The Congress taking the same into considera- 
tion, unanimously concurred therewith.' 

"The striking similarity of expression in the con- 
cluding sentences of the Mecklenburg Declaration, 
and the Declaration by Congress on the 4th of July, 
1776, has been repeatedly urged and relied upon 
as disproving the authenticity of the former. It is 
scarcely necessary to reply to this suggestion. It is 
not very strange that men who think alike should 
speak alike upon the same subject, more especially 
when high-toned patriotic feeling seeks for utter- 
ance. This similarity of expression is not confined, 
however, to these two papers. A comparison of the 
foregoing resolutions with the Declaration, as drawn 
by Mr. Jefferson, will satisfy the most credulous 
upon this subject. Who suspects Mr. Jefferson of 
intentional plagiarism ? and yet he might be charged 
with having appropriated the language of the Pro- 
vincial Legislature, with at least as much propriety 
as Mr. Alexander with having forged the Mecklen- 
burg Declaration. The sentiments embodied by Mr. 
Jefferson were not peculiar to himself, but adopted 
by him as expressive of the common feeling in the 
common language of that eventful period. 



AND RESOLUTIONS 

"Adopted by the General Assembly at the Session 

of 1830-31, upon which this publication is 

predicated. 

"The committee to whom it was referred to exam- 
ine, collate, and arrange in proper order such parts 



164 The Mecklenburg 

of the Journals of the Provincial Assemblies of North 
Carolina, as relate to the Declaration of American 
Independence; also such documents as relate to the 
Declaration of Independence made by the patriotic 
men of Mecklenburg in May, 1775; and also such 
measures as relate to the same cause, adopted by the 
freemen of Cumberland County, previous to the 4th 
of July, 1776, in order to the publication and distribu- 
tion of such documents, having performed the duty 
assigned them, respectfully report: 

"That upon an attentive examination of the 
Journals of the Provincial Assembly of North Caro- 
lina, which met at Halifax in the month of April, 
1776, the committee are of opinion, that no selection 
could be made from the said Journal to answer the 
purpose of the House. But as everything relating 
to that period must be interesting to those who value 
the blessing of national independence, the commit- 
tee recommend that the whole of the Journal be 
printed, and receive the same extended distribution 
which the resolution of the House contemplates for 
the proceedings in Mecklenburg and Cumberland. 
This course is deemed by the committee the more 
proper, because the Journal is now out of print, and 
it is highly probable that the copy in the possession 
of the committee is the only one now extant. 

"Your committee have also examined, collated, and 
arranged all the documents which have been acces- 
sible to them, touching the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence by the citizens of Mecklenburg, and the 
proceedings of the freemen of Cumberland. 



Declaration of Independence 165 

"By the publication of these papers it will be 
fully verified, that as early as the month of May, 
1775, a portion of the people of North Carolina, sen- 
sible that their wrongs could no longer be borne, 
without sacrificing both safety and honor, and that 
redress so often sought, so patiently waited for, and 
so cruelly delayed, was no longer to be expected, 
did, by a public and solemn act, declare the dissolu- 
tion of the ties which bound them to the crown and 
people of Great Britain, and did establish an inde- 
pendent, though temporary, government for their 
own control and direction. 

"The first claim of Independence evinces such 
high sentiments of valor and patriotism, that we 
cannot, and ought not, lightly to esteem the honor 
of having made it. The fact of the Declaration 
should be announced, its language should be pub- 
lished and perpetuated, and the names of the gallant 
representatives of Mecklenburg, with whom it origi- 
nated, should be preserved from an oblivion, which, 
should it involve them, would as much dishonor us, 
as injure them. If the thought of Independence did 
not first occur to them, to them, at least, belongs the 
proud distinction of having first given language to 
the thought; and it should be known, and, fortu- 
nately, it can still be conclusively established, that 
the Revolution received its first impulse toward 
Independence, however feeble, that impulse might 
have been, in North Carolina. The committee are 
aware that this assertion has elsewhere been 
received with doubt, and at times met with denial ; 
and it is therefore believed to be more strongly 



166 The Mecklenburg 

incumbent upon the House to usher to the world the 
Mecklenburg Declaration, accompanied with such 
testimonials of its genuineness, as shall silence 
incredulity, and with such care for its general dif- 
fusion, as shall forever secure it from being for- 
gotten. And in recounting the causes, the origin 
and the progress of our Revolutionary struggle, till 
its final issue in acknowledged independence, what- 
ever the brilliant achievement of other States may 
have been, let it never be forgotten, that at a period 
of darkness and oppression, without concert with 
others, without assurances of support from any 
quarter, a few gallant North Carolinians, all fear of 
consequences lost in a sense of their country's 
wrongs, relying, under Heaven, solely upon them- 
selves, nobly dared to assert, and resolved to main- 
tain, that independence of which, whoever might 
have thought, none had then spoken; and thus 
earned for themselves, and for their fellow-citizens 
of North Carolina, the honor of giving birth to the 
first Declaration of Independence. 

"The committee respectfully recommend the adop- 
tion of the following resolutions. 

"All of which is submitted. 

"Thos. G. Polk, Chairman, 
John Bragg, 
Evan Alexander, 
Louis D. Henry, 
Alex. McNeill. 

"Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be 
directed to cause to be published in pamphlet form 



Declaration of Independence 167 

the above Report and the accompanying documents, 
in the manner and order following, viz. : After the 
Report, first, the Mecklenburg Declaration, with 
the names of the Delegates composing the meeting; 
second, the Certificates testifying to the circum- 
stances attending the Declaration; third, the pro- 
ceedings of the Cumberland Association. And that 
he be further directed to have reprinted, in like 
manner, separate and distinct from the above, the 
accompanying Journal of the Provincial Assembly, 
held at Halifax in 1776. 

"Resolved further, That after publication, the 
Governor be instructed to distribute said documents 
as follows, to wit : Twenty copies of each to the 
Library of the State; to each of the Libraries at 
the University, ten copies ; to the Library of the Con- 
gress of the United States, ten copies ; and one copy 
to each of the Executives of the several States of the 
Union. 



H (, 



'declaration of independence. 

" 'May 20, 1775. 
" 'Names of the Delegates Present. 

"Col. Thomas Polk/Jno. McKnitt Alexan- 

Ephraim Brevard, * der. 
- Hezekiah J. Balch, Hezekiah Alexander, 

John Phifer, \^ Adam Alexander, -" 

James Harris, c Charles Alexander, -? 

William Kennon, -"Zacheus Wilson, Sen. 



168 The Mecklenburg 

John Ford, - ^Waightstill Avery, 

Richard Barry, ..- Benjamin Patton,— 
Henry Downs, * ~ Matthew McClure, 
Ezra Alexander, ^Neil Morrison, 
William Graham, ^Robert Irwin, 
John Queary, . m John Flenniken, 
Abraham Alexander, David Reese, 
John Davidson, Richard Harris, Sen. 

" 'Abraham Alexander was appointed Chair- 
man, and John McKnitt Alexander, Clerk. The 
following resolutions were offered, viz. : 

" 'ist. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indi- 
rectly abetted; or in any way, form, or manner, coun- 
tenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion 
of our rights* as claimed by Great Britain, is an 
enemy to this country, to America, and to the inher- 
ent and inalienable rights of man. 

" '2d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Meck- 
lenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political 
bands which have connected us to the mother coun- 
try, and hereby absolve ourselves from all alle- 
giance to the British Crown, and abjure all political 
connection, contract, or association, with that nation, 
who have wantonly trampled on our rights and lib- 
erties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American 
patriots at Lexington. 

" '3d. Resolved, That we do hereby declare our- 
selves a free and independent people; are, and of right 
ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Associa- 
tion, under the control of no power other than that 



Declaration of Independence 169 

of our God and the general government of the Con- 
gress; to the maintenance of which independence, 
we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co- 
operation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most 
sacred honor. 

" '4th. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge 
the existence and control of no law or legal officer, 
civil or military, within this county, we do hereby 
ordain and adopt as a rule of life, all, each and every 
of our former laws, — wherein, nevertheless, the 
Crown of Great Britain never can be considered as 
holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority 
therein. 

"'5th. Resolved, That it is further decreed, that 
all, each and every military officer in this county, is 
hereby reinstated in his former command and 
authority, he acting conformably to these regula- 
tions. And that every member present, of this dele- 
gation, shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz., a Jus- 
tice of the Peace, in the character of a "Committee- 
man" to issue process, hear and determine all matters 
of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and 
to preserve peace, union and harmony in said 
county ; — and to use every exertion to spread the 
love of country and fire of freedom throughout 
America, until a more general and organized gov- 
ernment be established in this province. 

" 'After discussing the foregoing resolves, and 
arranging bye-laws and regulations for the govern- 
ment of a Standing Committee of Public Safety, 
who were selected from these delegates, the whole 



170 The Mecklenburg 

proceedings were unanimously adopted and signed. 
A select committee was then appointed to draw a 
more full and definite statement of grievances, and 
a more formal Declaration of Independence. The 
Delegation then adjourned about 2 o'clock a. m., 
May 20/ 



"A. 

"FROM THE RALEIGH REGISTER OF APRIL 30, 1819. 

" 'It is not probably known to many of our 
readers, that the citizens of Mecklenburg County, 
in this State, made a Declaration of Independence 
more than a year before Congress made theirs. The 
following document on the subject has lately come 
to the hands of the Editor from unquestionable 
authority and is published that it may go down to 
posterity. 

" 'North Carolina, Mecklenburg County, 

May 20, 1775. 

" 'In the spring of 1775, the leading characters of 
Mecklenburg County, stimulated by that enthusias- 
tic patriotism which elevates the mind above con- 
siderations of individual aggrandizement, and scorn- 
ing to shelter themselves from the impending storm 
by submission to lawless power, etc., etc., held sev- 
eral detached meetings, in each of which the indi- 
vidual sentiments were, "that the cause of Boston 



Declaration of Independence 171 

was the cause of all ; that their destinies were indis- 
solubly connected with those of their Eastern fel- 
low-citizens — and that they must either submit to 
all the impositions which an unprincipled, and to 
them unrepresented, Parliament might impose — or 
support their brethren who were doomed to sustain 
the first shock of that power, which, if successful 
there, would ultimately overwhelm all in the com- 
mon calamity." Conformably to these principles, 
Colonel T. Polk, through solicitation, issued an order 
to each Captain's company in the county of Meck- 
lenburg, (then comprising the present county of 
Cabarrus,) directing each militia company to elect 
two persons, and delegate to them ample power to 
devise ways and means to aid and assist their suf- 
fering brethren in Boston, and also generally to 
adopt measures to extricate themselves from the 
impending storm, and to secure unimpaired their 
inalienable rights, privileges and liberties, from the 
dominant grasp of British imposition and tyranny. 
" 'In conformity to said order, on the 19th of 
May, 1775, the said delegation met in Charlotte, 
vested with unlimited powers ; at which time official 
news, by express, arrived of the battle of Lexington 
on that day of the preceding month. Every delegate 
felt the value and importance of the prize, and the 
awful and solemn crisis which had arrived — every 
bosom swelled with indignation at the malice, invet- 
eracy, and insatiable revenge, developed in the late 
attack at Lexington. The universal sentiment was : 
let us not flatter ourselves that popular harangues, 
or resolves ; that popular vapor will avert the storm, 



172 The Mecklenburg 

or vanquish our common enemy — let us deliberate — 
let us calculate the issue — the probable result; and 
then let us act with energy, as brethren leagued to 
preserve our property — our lives — and what is still 
more endearing, the liberties of America. Abraham 
Alexander was then elected Chairman, and John 
Me Knit t Alexander, Clerk. After a free and full 
discussion of the various objects for which the dele- 
gation had been convened, it was unanimously 
ordained — 

[davie copy.] 

" ' "i. Resolved, That whoever directly or indi- 
rectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, coun- 
tenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion 
of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an 
enemy to this country — to America — and to the 
inherent and inalienable rights of man. 

" ' "2. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Meck- 
lenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political 
bands which have connected us with the Mother 
Country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all alle- 
giance to the British Crown, and abjure all political 
connection, contract, or association with that nation, 
who have wantonly trampled on our rights and 
liberties — and inhumanly shed the innocent blood 
of American patriots at Lexington. 

" ' "3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare our- 
selves a free and independent people, are, and of right 
ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Associa- 
tion, under the control of no power other than that of 
our God and the General Government of the Con- 



Declaration of Independence 173 

gress ; to the maintenance of which independence, we 
solemnly pledge to each other, our mutual co-opera- 
tion, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred 
honor. 

" ' "4. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge 
the existence and control of no law or legal officer, 
civil or military, within this county, we do hereby 
ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each and 
every of our former laws wherein, nevertheless, the 
Crown of Great Britain never can be considered as 
holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority 
therein. 

" ' "5. Resolved, That it is also further decreed, 
that all, each and every military officer in this county, 
is hereby reinstated to his former command and 
authority, he acting conformably to these regula- 
tions. And that every member present of this dele- 
gation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz., a Justice 
of the Peace, in the character of a 'Committee-man,' 
to issue process, hear and determine all matters of 
controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to 
preserve peace, and union, and harmony, in said 
county, — and to use every exertion to spread the love 
of country and fire of freedom throughout America, 
until a more general and organized government be 
established in this province." 

" 'A number of by-laws were also added, merely 
to protect the association from confusion, and to 
regulate their general conduct as citizens. After 
sitting in the court-house all night, neither sleepy, 
hungry, nor fatigued, and after discussing every 



174 The Mecklenburg 

paragraph, they were all passed, sanctioned, and 
decreed unanimously, about 2 o'clock a. m., May 
20. In a few days, a deputation of said delegation 
convened, when Capt. James Jack, of Charlotte, was 
deputed as express to the Congress at Philadelphia, 
with a copy of said Resolves and Proceedings, 
together with a letter addressed to our three repre- 
sentatives there, viz., Richard Caswell, William 
Hooper and Joseph Hewes — under express injunc- 
tion, personally, and through the State representa- 
tion, to use all possible means to have said proceed- 
ings sanctioned and approved by the General Con- 
gress. On the return of Captain Jack, the delegation 
learned that their, proceedings were individually 
approved by the Members of Congress, but that it 
was deemed premature to lay them before the 
House. A joint letter from said three Members of 
Congress was also received, complimentary of the 
zeal in the common cause, and recommending per- 
severance, order and energy. 

" The subsequent harmony, unanimity, and exer- 
tion in the cause of liberty and independence, evi- 
dently resulting from these regulations and the con- 
tinued exertion of said delegation, apparently tran- 
quillized this section of the State, and met with the 
concurrence and high approbation of the Council 
of Safety, who held their sessions at Newbern and 
Wilmington, alternately, and who confirmed the 
nomination and acts of the delegation in their offi- 
cial capacity. 

" 'From this delegation originated the Court of 
Enquiry of this county, who constituted and held 



Declaration of Independence 175 

their first session in Charlotte — they then held their 
meetings regularly at Charlotte, at Col. James Har- 
ris's, and at Col. Phifer's, alternately, one week at 
each place. It was a Civil Court founded on mili- 
tary process. Before this Judicature, all suspicious 
persons were made to appear, who were formally 
tried and banished, or continued under guard. Its 
jurisdiction was as unlimited as toryism, and its 
decrees as final as the confidence and patriotism of 
the county. Several were arrested and brought 
before them from Lincoln, Rowan and the adjacent 
counties. 

" '[The foregoing is a true copy of the papers on 
the above subject, left in my hands by John McKnitt 
Alexander, dec'd. I find it mentioned on file that 
the original book was burned April, 1800. That a 
copy of the proceedings was sent to Hugh William- 
son, in New York, then writing a History of North 
Carolina, and that a copy was sent to Gen. W. R. 
Davie. 

J. McKNITT.] 

" 'State of North Carolina, 

Mecklenburg County. 

" T, Samuel Henderson, do hereby certify, that 
the paper annexed was obtained by me from Maj. 
William Davie in its present situation, soon after 
the death of his father, Gen. William R. Davie, and 
given to Dr. Joseph McKnitt by me. In searching 
for some particular paper, I came across this, and, 
knowing the hand-writing of John McKnitt Alex- 



176 The Mecklenburg 

ander, took it up, and examined it. Maj. Davie said 
to me (when asked how it became torn) his sisters 
had torn it, not knowing what it was. 

" 'Given under my hand, this 25th Nov., 1830. 

" 'Sam. Henderson/ 

"[Note. — To this certificate of Dr. Henderson is 
annexed the copy of the paper A, originally 
deposited by John McKnitt Alexander in the hands 
of Gen. Davie, whose name seems to have been mis- 
taken by Mr. Jefferson for that of Gov. Caszvell. 
See preface, pages 5 and 6. This paper is somewhat 
torn, but is entirely legible, and constitutes the 'sol- 
emn and positive proof of authenticity' which Mr. 
Jefferson required, and which would doubtless have 
been satisfactory had it been submitted to him.] 



LETTER FROM HON. C. TAIT, MEMBER OF CONGRESS 
FROM GEORGIA. 

" 'Washington, Jan'y 25th, 1819. 

" 'Dear Sir : — Of late an inquiry, and in some 
instances a controversy, has arisen respecting the 
origin of the American Revolution. Some say it 
began in Virginia, and for this honor the Virginians 
strenuously contend. The people of New England 
assert that it commenced in the Town of Boston, and 
much has been written of late on the subject. This 
controversy has been dignified by a correspondence 
between two ex-Presidents of the U. S. — Adams 



Declaration of Independence 177 

and Jefferson. Other parts of the country begin to 
put in their pretensions to an early movem't in this 
great event, which is destined to influence the affairs 
of mankind. North Carolina thinks she has some 
claims in this regard ; and Mr. Macon of the Senate 
is collecting what information he can on the sub- 
ject. It appears by a document lately furnished him 
that the people of the county of Mecklenburg of that 
State, so early as on the 20th of May, 1775, declared 
themselves independent in due form in a convention 
at the town of Charlotte. That Adam or Abram 
Alexander was the President of this Convention, and 
that John McKnitt Alexander was its Secretary or 
Clerk. It also appears by this curious document that 
Cap'n James Jack was the person chosen to carry 
the proceedings of this convention to the Continental 
Congress sitting at Philadelphia. Presuming that 
the Cap'n Jack is no other person than your 
respected father, I informed Mr. Macon he is still 
living in the county of Elbert and State of Georgia. 
This information has produced a request from Mr. 
Macon that I would write to you and request it as a 
favor of you to forward to him any Document, or 
copy of a Document, which has any relation to the 
Mecklenburg Convention, or of the Revolutionary 
movements in that part of the country, at that early 
period. This I persuade myself you will with pleas- 
ure do. By possibility your father may have pre- 
served, as a precious relic of those days, some papers 
relating to the proceedings alluded to, and in which 



178 The Mecklenburg 

he bore an honorable part. If this is the case it will 
gratify Mr. Macon very much to get them or a copy 
of them. 

" 'Present my respects to Mrs. Jack, to your father 
and mother, and believe me, 

" 'Yours, &c, &c, 

"'(Signed.) C. Tait. 

'Gen. P. Jack. 

: P. S. — Mr. Macon will be very glad to hear 
from you before the adjournment of Congress ; his 
given name is Nathaniel. C. TV 



"'( 



CAPTAIN JACK S CERTIFICATE. 

" 'Having seen in the newspapers some pieces 
respecting the Declaration of Independence by the 
people of Mecklenburg County, in the State of 
North Carolina, in May, 1775, and being solicited to 
state what I know of that transaction; I would 
observe, that for some time previous to, and at the 
time those resolutions were agreed upon, I resided 
in the town of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County; was 
privy to a number of meetings of some of the most 
influential and leading characters of that county on 
the subject, before the final adoption of the resolu- 
tions — and at the time they were adopted; among 
those who appeared to take the lead, may be men- 
tioned Hezekiah Alexander, who generally acted as 
Chairman, John McKnitt Alexander, as Secretary, 



Declaration of Independence 179 

Abraham Alexander, Adam Alexander, Maj. John 
Davidson, Maj. (afterwards Gen.) Wm. Davidson, 
Col. Thomas Polk, Ezekiel Polk, Dr. Ephraim Bre- 
vard, Samuel Martin, Duncan Ochletree, William 
Willson, Robert Irvin. 

" 'When the resolutions were finally agreed on, 
they were publicly proclaimed from the court-house 
door in the town of Charlotte, and received with 
every demonstration of joy by the inhabitants. 

" 'I was then solicited to be the bearer of the pro- 
ceedings to Congress. I set out the following month, 
say June, and in passing through Salisbury, the 
General Court was sitting — at the request of the 
court I handed a copy of the resolutions to Col. Ken- 
non, an Attorney, and they were read aloud in open 
court. Major William Davidson, and Mr. Avery, 
an attorney, called on me at my lodgings the even- 
ing after, and observed, they had heard of but one 
person, (a Mr. Beard) but approved of them. 

" 'I then proceeded on to Philadelphia, and deliv- 
ered the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence 
of May, 1775, to Richard Caswell and William 
Hooper, the Delegates to Congress from the State 
of North Carolina. 

" 'I am now in the eighty-eighth year of my age, 
residing in the county of Elbert, in the State of 
Georgia. I was in the Revolutionary War, from the 
commencement to the close. I would further 
observe, that the Rev. Francis Cummins, a Presby- 
terian Clergyman, of Greene County, in this State, 
was a student in the town of Charlotte at the time of 



180 The Mecklenburg 

the adoption of the resolutions, and is as well, or per- 
haps better acquainted with the proceedings at that 
time, than any man now living. 

" 'Col. William Polk, of Raleigh, in North Caro- 
lina, was living with his father, Thomas, in Char- 
lotte, at the time I have been speaking of, and 
although then too young to be forward in the busi- 
ness, yet the leading circumstances I have related 
cannot have escaped his recollection. 

" 'James Jack. 

" 'Signed this 7th Dec, 1819, in presence of 

" 'Job Weston, C. C. O. 
James Oliver, Atto. at Law.' 



"C 2. 

" 'North Carolina, 
Cabarrus County, Nov. 29, 1830. 

" 'We, the undersigned, do hereby certify that we 
have frequently heard William S. Alexander, dec'd, 
say that he, the said Wm. S. Alexander, was at 
Philadelphia, on mercantile business, in the early 
part of the summer of 1775, say in June; and that 
on the day that Gen. Washington left Philadelphia 
to take the command of the Northern army, he, the 
said Wm. S. Alexander, met with Capt. James Jack, 
who informed him, the said William S. Alexander, 
that he, the said James Jack, was there as the agent or 
bearer of the Declaration of Independence made in 



Declaration of Independence 181 

Charlotte, on the twentieth day of May, seventeen 
hundred and seventy-five, by the citizens of Meck- 
lenburg, then including Cabarrus, with instructions 
to present the same to the Delegates from North Car- 
olina, and by them to be laid before Congress, and 
which he said he had done ; in which Declaration the 
aforesaid citizens of Mecklenburg renounced their 
allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and set up 
a government for themselves, under the title of the 
Committee of Safety. 

" 'Given under our hands the date above written. 

" 'Alphonso Alexander, 
Amos Alexander. 
J. McKnitt/ 



"D. 

" 'Lexington, (Georgia,) November 10, 1819. 

" 'Dear Sir : — The bearer, the Hon. Thomas W. 
Cobb, has suggested to me that you had a desire to 
know something particularly of the proceedings of 
the citizens of Mecklenburg County, in North Caro- 
lina, about the beginning of our Revolutionary War. 

" 'Previous to my becoming more particular, I 
will suppose you remember the Regulation business, 
which took its rise in or before the year 1770, and 
issued and ended in a battle between the Regulators 
and Governor Tryon, in the spring of 1771. Some 
of the Regulators were killed, and the whole dis- 



182 The Mecklenburg 

persed. The Regulators' conduct "was a rudis 
indigestaque moles/' as Ovid says, about the begin- 
ning of creation; but the embryotic principles of the 
Revolution were in their temper and views. They 
wanted strength, consistency, a Congress and a 
Washington at their head. Tryon sent his officers 
and minions through the State, and imposed the 
oath of allegiance upon the people, even as far up 
as Mecklenburg County. In the year 1775, after 
our Revolution began, the principal characters of 
Mecklenburg County met on two sundry days, in 
Queen's Museum in Charlotte, to digest articles for 
a State Constitution, in anticipation that the Prov- 
ince would proceed to do so. In this business the 
leading characters were, the Rev. Hezekiah James 
Balch, a graduate of Princeton College, an elegant 
scholar; Waightstill Avery, Esq., Attorney at Law; 
Hezekiah and John McKnitt Alexander, Esqrs., Col. 
Thomas Polk, etc., etc. 

"'Many men, and young men, (myself one,) 
before magistrates, abjured allegiance to George 
III., or any other foreign power. At length, in the 
same year 1775,1 think at least positively before July 
4th, 1776, the males generally of that county met on 
a certain day in Charlotte, and from the head of the 
court-house stairs proclaimed Independence of Eng- 
lish Government, by their herald Col. Thomas Polk. 
I was present, and saw and heard it, and as a young 
man, and then a student in Queen's Museum, was an 
agent in these things. I did not then take and keep 
the dates, and cannot, as to date, be so particular as 
I could wish. Capt. James Jack, then of Charlotte, 



Declaration of Independence 183 

but now of Elbert County, in Georgia, was sent with 
the account of these proceedings to Congress, then 
in Philadelphia — and brought back to the county, 
the thanks of Congress for their zeal — and the 
advice of Congress to be a little more patient, until 
Congress should take the measures thought to be 
best. 

"'I would suppose, sir, that some minutes of 
these things must be found among the records of the 
first Congress, that would perfectly settle their dates. 
I am perfectly sure, being present at the whole of 
them, they were before our National Declaration of 
Independence. 

" 'Hon. Sir, if the above few things can 
afford you any gratification, it will add to the hap- 
piness of your friend and humble servant. 

" 'Francis Cummins. 

" 'Hon. Nathaniel Macon/ 



"E. 

" 'Vesuvius Furnace, 4th October, 1830. 

" 'Dear Sir, — Agreeably to your request, I will 
give you the details of the Mecklenburg Declaration 
of Independence on the 20th of May, 1775, as well 
as I can recollect after a lapse of fifty-five years. I 
was then a lad about half grown, was present on 
that occasion (a looker on). 



184 The Mecklenburg 

" 'During the winter and spring preceding that 
event, several popular meetings of the people were 
held in Charlotte; two of which I attended. — 
Papers were read, grievances stated, and public 
measures discussed. As printing was not then com- 
mon in the South, the papers were mostly manu- 
script ; one or more of which was from the pen of the 
Reverend Doctor Reese, (then of Mecklenburg,) 
which met with general approbation, and copies of it 
circulated. It is to be regretted that those and other 
papers published at that period, and the journal of 
their proceedings, are lost. — They would show much 
of the spirit and tone of thinking which prepared 
them for the measures they afterwards adopted. 

" 'On the 20th of May, 1775, besides the two per- 
sons elected from each militia company, (usually 
called Committee-men,) a much larger number of 
citizens attended in Charlotte than at any former 
meeting — perhaps half the men in the county. The 
news of the battle of Lexington, the 19th of April 
preceding, had arrived. There appeared among the 
people much excitement. The committee were 
organized in the Court-house by appointing Abra- 
ham Alexander, Esq., Chairman, and John McKnitt 
Alexander, Esq., Clerk or Secretary to the meeting. 

" 'After reading a number of papers as usual, and 
much animated discussion, the question was taken, 
and they resolved to declare themselves independent. 
One among other reasons offered, that the King or 
Ministry had, by proclamation or some edict, 
declared the Colonies out of the protection of the 
British Crown; they ought, therefore, to declare 



Declaration of Independence 185 

themselves out of his protection, and resolve on 
independence. That their proceedings might be in 
due form, a sub-committee, consisting of Doctor 
Ephraim Brevard, a Mr. Kennon, an attorney, and a 
third person, whom I do not recollect, were 
appointed to draft their Declaration. They retired 
from the court-house for some time; but the com- 
mittee continued in session in it. One circumstance 
occurred I distinctly remember : A member of the 
committee, who had said but little before, addressed 
the Chairman as follows : "If you resolve on inde- 
pendence, how shall we all be absolved from the 
obligations of the oath we took to be true to King 
George the 3d about four years ago, after the Regu- 
lation battle, when we were sworn whole militia 
companies together. I should be glad to know how 
gentlemen can clear their consciences after taking 
that oath." This speech produced confusion. The 
Chairman could scarcely preserve order, so many 
wished to reply. There appeared great indignation 
and contempt at the speech of the member. Some 
said it was nonsense ; others that allegiance and pro- 
tection were reciprocal; when protection was with- 
drawn, allegiance ceased; that the oath was only 
binding while the King protected us in the enjoy- 
ment of our rights and liberties as they existed at 
the time it was taken ; which he had not done, but 
now declared us out of his protection ; therefore 
was not binding. Any man who interpreted it 
otherwise, was a fool. By way of illustration, 
(pointing to a green tree near the court-house,) 
stated, if he was sworn to do anything as long as 



186 The Mecklenburg 

the leaves continued on that tree, it was so long 
binding; but when the leaves fell, he was discharged 
from its obligation. This was said to be certainly 
applicable in the present case. Out of respect for 
a worthy citizen, long since deceased, and his 
respectable connections, I forbear to mention names ; 
for, though he was a friend to the cause, a suspicion 
rested on him in the public mind for some time 
after. 

" 'The sub-committee appointed to draft the reso- 
lutions returned, and Doctor Ephraim Brevard read 
their report, as near as I can recollect, in the very 
words we have since seen them several times in print. 
It was unanimously adopted, and shortly after it was 
moved and seconded to have proclamation made and 
the people collected, that the proceedings be read at 
the Court-house door, in order that all might hear 
them. It was done, and they were received with 
enthusiasm. It was then proposed by some one 
aloud to give three cheers and throw up their hats. 
It was immediately adopted, and the hats thrown. 
Several of them lit on the court-house roof. The 
owners had some difficulty to reclaim them. 

" The foregoing is all from personal knowledge. 
I understood afterwards that Captain James Jack, 
then of Charlotte, undertook, on the request of the 
committee, to carry a copy of their proceedings to 
Congress, which then sat in Philadelphia; and on 
his way, at Salisbury, the time of court, Mr. Ken- 
non, who was one of the committee who assisted in 
drawing the Declaration, prevailed on Captain Jack 
to get his papers, and have them read publicly; 



Declaration of Independence 187 

which was done, and the proceedings met with gen- 
eral approbation. But two of the Lawyers, John 
Dunn and a Mr. Booth, dissented, and asserted they 
were treasonable, and endeavored to have Captain 
Jack detained. He drew his pistols, and threatened 
to kill the first man who would interrupt him, and 
passed on. The news of this reached Charlotte in 
a short time after, and the executive of thecommittee, 
whom they had invested with suitable powers, 
ordered a party of ten or twelve armed horsemen 
to bring said Lawyers from Salisbury; when they 
were brought, and the case investigated before the 
committee. Dunn, on giving security and making 
fair promises, was permitted to return, and Booth 
was sentenced to go to Camden, in South Carolina, 
out of the sphere of his influence. My brother 
George Graham and the late Col. John Carruth 
were of the party that went to Salisbury ; and it is 
distinctly remembered that when in Charlotte they 
came home at night, in order to provide for their 
trip to Camden ; and that they and two others of the 
party took Booth to that place. This was the first mil- 
itary expedition from Mecklenburg in the Revolu- 
tionary War, and believed to be the first anywhere 
to the South. 

" 'Yours respectfully, 

" 'J. Graham. 
" 'Dr. Jos. McKt. Alexander, 

" 'Mecklenburg, N. Carolina/ 



188 The Mecklenburg 

"extract from the memoir of the late rev. 
humphrey hunter. 

" 'Orders were presently issued by Col. Thos. 
Polk to the several militia companies, that two men, 
selected from each corps, should meet at the court- 
house on the 19th of May, 1775, in order to consult 
with each other upon such measures as might be 
thought best to be pursued. Accordingly, on said 
day a far larger number than two out of each com- 
pany were present. There was some difficulty in 
choosing the commissioners. To have chosen all 
thought to be worthy, would have rendered the 
meeting too numerous. The following were 
selected, and styled Delegates, and are here given, 
according to my best recollection, as they were 
placed on roll : Abram Alexander, sen'r, Thomas 
Polk, Rich'd Harris, sen'r, Adam Alexander, Rich- 
ard Barry, John McKnitt Alexander, Neil Morison, 
Hezekiah Alexander, Hezekiah J. Balch, Zacheus 
Wilson, John Phifer, James Harris, William Ken- 
non, John Ford, Henry Downs, Ezra Alexander, 
William Graham, John Queary, Chas. Alexander, 
Waightstill Avery, Ephraim Brevard, Benjamin 
Patton, Matthew McClure, Robert Irwin, John Flen- 
niken and David Reese. 

" 'Abram Alexander was nominated, and unani- 
mously voted to the Chair. John McKnitt Alexander 
and Ephraim Brevard were chosen Secretaries. The 
Chair being occupied, and the Clerks seated, the 



Declaration of Independence 189 

House was called to order and proceeded to business. 
Then a full, a free, and dispassionate discussion 
obtained on the various subjects for which the del- 
egation had been convened, and the following reso- 
tions were unanimously ordained : 

" 'ist. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indi- 
rectly abetted, or in any way, form or manner, coun- 
tenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of 
our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy 
to this country, to America, and to the inherent and 
inalienable rights of man. 

" '2d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Meck- 
lenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political 
bands which have connected us to the mother 
country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all alle- 
giance to the British Crown, and abjure all political 
connection, contract, or association, with that nation, 
who have wantonly trampled on our rights and lib- 
erties and inhumanly shed the blood of American 
patriots at Lexington. 

" '3d. Resolved, That we do hereby declare our- 
selves a free and independent people; are, and of right 
ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Associa- 
tion, under the control of no power other than that of 
our God and the general government of the Congress ; 
to the maintenance of which independence, we sol- 
emnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, 
our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor. 

" '4th. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge 
the existence and control of no law or legal officer, 
civil or military, within this county, we do hereby 



190 The Mecklenburg 

ordain and adopt as a rule of life, all, each and every 
of our former laws — wherein, nevertheless, the 
crown of Great Britain never can be considered as 
holding rights, privileges, immunities or authority 
therein. 

" '5th. Resolved, That it is further decreed, that 
all, each and every military officer in this county, is 
hereby reinstated in his former command and 
authority, he acting conformably to these regula- 
tions. And that every member present, of this dele- 
gation, shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz., a Jus- 
tice of the Peace, in the character of a "Committee- 
man/' to issue process, hear and determine all mat- 
ters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, 
and to preserve peace, union and harmony in said 
county; — and to use every exertion to spread the 
love of country and fire of freedom throughout 
America, until a more general and organized govern- 
ment be established in this province. 

" 'Those resolves having been concurred in, bye- 
laws and regulations for the government of a stand- 
ing Committee of Public Safety were enacted and 
acknowledged. Then a select committee was 
appointed, to report on the ensuing day a full and 
definite statement of grievances, together with a 
more correct and formal draft of the Declaration of 
Independence. The proceedings having been thus 
arranged and somewhat in readiness for promulga- 
tion, the Delegation then adjourned until to-mor- 
row, at 12 o'clock. 

" The 20th of May, at 12 o'clock, the Delegation, 
as above, had convened. The select committee were 



Declaration of Independence 191 

also present, and reported agreeably to instructions, 
viz., a statement of grievances and formal draft of 
the Declaration of Independence, written by 
Ephraim Brevard, chairman of said committee, and 
read by him to the Delegation. The resolves, bye- 
laws and regulations were read by John McKnitt 
Alexander. It was then announced from the Chair, 
Are you all agreed? There was not a dissenting 
voice. Finally, the whole proceedings were read dis- 
tinctly and audibly, at the court-house door, by Col. 
Thomas Polk, to a large, respectable and approving 
assemblage of citizens, who were present, and gave 
sanction to the business of the day. A copy of all 
those transactions were then drawn off, and given 
in charge to Capt. James Jack, then of Charlotte, 
that he should present them to Congress, then in ses- 
sion in Philadelphia. 

" 'On that memorable day I was 20 years and 
14 days of age, a very deeply interested spectator, 
recollecting the dire hand of oppression that had 
driven me from my native clime, now pursuing me 
in this happy asylum, and seeking to bind again in 
the fetters of bondage. 

" 'On the return of Capt. Jack, he reported that 
Congress, individually, manifested their entire 
approbation of the conduct of the Mecklenburg citi- 
zens ; but deemed it premature to lay them officially 
before the House.' 

["Note. — The foregoing extract is copied from a 
manuscript account of the Revolutionary War in the 
South, addressed by the writer to a friend, who had 



192 The Mecklenburg 

requested historical information upon the subject. 
Mr. Hunter was in the battle of Camden, and has 
given an interesting narrative of the circumstances 
connected with the death of Baron DeKalb. The 
manuscript gives the biography of the writer, from 
which it appears he was a native of Ireland, and 
born on the 14th of May, 1755, and at an early age 
emigrated from his native land to the Province of 
North Carolina.] 



ADDITIONAL PAPERS NOT PARTICULARLY REFERRED 
TO IN THE PREFACE. 



"From the Raleigh Register, of February 18, 1820. 
" 'MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

" 'When this Declaration was first published in 
April last, some doubts were expressed in the Eastern 
papers as to its authenticity, (none of the Histories 
of the Revolution having noticed the circumstance.) 
Col. William Polk, of this City, (who, though a 
mere youth at the time, was present at the meeting 
which made the Declaration, and whose Father, 
being Colonel of the county, appears to have acted a 
conspicuous part on the occasion,) observing this, 
assured us of the correctness of the facts generally, 
though he thought there were errors as to the name 
of the Secretary, etc., and said that he should prob- 
ably be able to correct these, and throw some further 
light on the subject, by inquiries amongst some of 



Declaration of Independence 193 

his old friends in Mecklenburg County. He has 
accordingly made inquiries, and communicated to 
us the following Documents as the result, which, 
we presume, will do away with all doubts on the 
subject. 

" 'certificate. 

" 'State of North Carolina, 
Mecklenburg County. 

"'At the request of Col. William Polk, of 
Raleigh, made to Major-General George Graham, 
soliciting him to procure all the information that 
could be obtained at this late period, of the transac- 
tions which took place in the county of Mecklenburg, 
in the year 1775, as it respected the people of that 
county having declared Independence; of the time 
when the Declaration was made; who were the 
principal movers and leaders, and the members who 
composed the body of Patriots who made the Declar- 
ation, and signed the same. 

" 'We, the undersigned citizens of the said county, 
and of the several ages set forth opposite to each of 
our names, do certify, and on our honor declare, that 
we were present in the town of Charlotte, in the 
said county of Mecklenburg, on the 19th day of 
May, 1775, when two persons elected from each 
Captain's Company in said county, appeared as 
Delegates, to take into consideration the state of the 
country, and to adopt such measures as to them 
seemed best, to secure their lives, liberty, and prop- 
erty, from the storm which was gathering, and had 



194 The Mecklenburg 

burst upon their fellow-citizens to the Eastward, by 
a British Army, under the authority of the British 
King and Parliament. 

" 'The order for the election of Delegates was 
given by Col. Thomas Polk, the commanding officer 
of the militia of the county, with a request that their 
powers should be ample, touching any measure that 
should be proposed. 

" 'We do further certify and declare, that to the 
best of our recollection and belief, the delegation was 
complete from every company, and that the meeting 
took place in the court-house, about 12 o'clock on 
the said 19th day of May, 1775, when Abraham 
Alexander was chosen Chairman, and Dr. Ephraim 
Brevard, Secretary. That the Delegates continued 
in session until in the night of that day ; that on the 
20th they again met, when a committee, under the 
direction of the Delegates, had formed several 
resolves, which were read, and which went to 
declare themselves, and the people of Mecklenburg 
County, Free and Independent of the King and Par- 
liament of Great Britain — and that, from that day 
thenceforth, all allegiance and political relation was 
absolved between the good people of Mecklenburg 
and the King of Great Britain; which Declaration 
was signed by every member of the Delegation, 
under the shouts and huzzas of a very large assembly 
of the people of the county, who had come to know 
the issue of the meeting. We further believe, that 
the Declaration of Independence was drawn up by 
the Secretary, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, and that it was 
conceived and brought about through the instrumen- 



Declaration of Independence 195 

tality and popularity of Col. Thomas Polk, Abraham 
Alexander, John McKnitt Alexander, Adam Alex- 
ander, Ephraim Brevard, John Phifer, and Hezekiah 
Alexander, with some others. 

" 'We do further certify and declare, that in a 
few days after the Delegates adjourned, Capt. James 
Jack, of the town of Charlotte, was engaged to carry 
the resolves to the President of Congress, and to 
our Representatives — one copy for each ; and that his 
expenses were paid by a voluntary subscription. 
And we do know that Captain Jack executed the 
trust, and returned with answers, both from the 
President and our Delegates in Congress, expressive 
of their entire approbation of the course that had 
been adopted, recommending a continuance in the 
same; and that the time would soon be, when the 
whole Continent would follow our example. 

" 'We further certify and declare, that the meas- 
ures which were adopted at the time before men- 
tioned, had a general influence on the people of this 
county to unite them in the cause of liberty and the 
country, at that time; that the same unanimity and 
patriotism continued unimpaired to the close of the 
war ; and that the resolutions had considerable effect 
in harmonizing the people in two or three adjoining 
counties. 

" That a committee of Safety for the county 
were elected, who were clothed with civil and military 
power, and under their authority several disaffected 
persons in Rowan, and Tryon( now Lincoln County,) 



196 The Mecklenburg 

were sent for, examined, and conveyed (after it was 
satisfactorily proven they were inimical) to Camden, 
in South Carolina, for safe-keeping. 

" We do further certify, that the acts passed by 
the Committee of Safety, were received as the Civil 
Law of the land in many cases, and that Courts of 
Justice for the decision of controversies between the 
people were held, and we have no recollection that 
dissatisfaction existed in any instance with regard to 
the judgments of said courts. 

" 'We are not, at this late period, able to give the 
names of all the Delegation who formed the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; but can safely declare as to the 
following persons being of the number, viz : Thomas 
Polk, Abraham Alexander, John McKnitt Alex- 
ander, Adam Alexander, Ephraim Brevard, John 
Phifer, Hezekiah James Balch, Benjamin Patton, 
Hezekiah Alexander, Richard Barry, William 
Graham, Matthew McClure, Robert Irwin, Zacheus 
Wilson, Neil Morrison, John Flenniken, John 
Queary, Ezra Alexander. 

" Tn testimony of all and every part herein set 
forth, we have hereunto set our hands. 

" 'George Graham, aged 61, near 62. 
" 'William Hutchison, 68. 
" 'Jonas Clark, 61. 

" 'Robert Robinson, 68/ 



Declaration of Independence 197 



FROM JOHN SIMESON TO COL. WILLIAM POLK. 



t( <i 



" 'Providence, January 20, 1820. 

'Dear Sir, — After considerable delay, occa- 
sioned partly to obtain what information I could, in 
addition to my own knowledge of the facts in rela- 
tion to our Declaration of Independence, and partly 
by a precarious, feeble old age, I now write to you 
in answer to yours of the 24th ult. 

" 'I have conversed with many of my old friends 
and others, and all agree in the point, but few can 
state the particulars; for although our county is 
renowned for general intelligence, we have still some 
that don't read the public prints. You know, in the 
language of the day, every Province had its Con- 
gress, and Mecklenburg had its county Congress, as 
legally chosen as any other, and assumed an attitude 
until then without a precedent; but, alas! those 
worthies who conceived and executed that bold 
measure, are no more; and one reason why so little 
new light can be thrown on an old truth, may be 
this — and I appeal to yourself for the correctness of 
the remark — we who are now called Revolutionary 
men, were then thoughtless, precipitate youths; we 
cared not who conceived the bold act, our business 
was to adopt and support it. Yourself, sir, in your 
eighteenth year and on the spot, your worthy father, 
the most popular and influential character in the 
county, and yet you cannot state much from recollec- 
tion. Your father, as commanding officer of the 
county, issued orders to the Captains to appoint two 



198 The Mecklenburg 

men from each company to represent them in the 
committee. — It was done. Neill Morrison, John 
Flenniken, from this company; Charles Alexander, 
John McKnitt Alexander, Hezekiah Alexander, 
Abraham Alexander, Esq., John Phifer, David 
Reese, Adam Alexander, Dickey Barry, John 
Queary, with others, whose names I cannot obtain. 
As to the names of those who drew up the Declara- 
tion, I am inclined to think Doctor Brevard was the 
principal, from his known talents in composition. 
It was, however, in substance and form, like that 
great national act agreed on thirteen months after. 
Ours was towards the close of May, 1775. In 
addition to what I have said, the same committee 
appointed three men to secure all the military stores 
for the county's use — Thomas Polk, John Phifer, 
and Joseph Kennedy. I was under arms near the 
head of the line, near Colonel Polk, and heard him 
distinctly read a long string of Grievances, the 
Declaration and Military Order above. I likewise 
heard Colonel Polk have two warm disputes with 
two men of the county, who said the measures were 
rash and unnecessary. He was applauded and they 
silenced. I was then in my 226. year, an enemy to 
usurpation and tyranny of every kind, with a reten- 
tive memory, and fond of liberty, that had a doubt 
arisen in my mind that the act would be contro- 
verted, proof would not have been wanting; but I 
comfort myself that none but the self-important 
peace-party and bluelights of the East, will have the 
assurance to oppose it any further. The biographer 
of Patrick Henry (Mr. Wirt) says he first suggested 



Declaration of Independence 199 

Independence in the Virginia Convention; but it is 
known they did not reduce it to action — so that it 
will pass for nothing. The Courts likewise acted 
independently. I myself heard a dispute take place 
on the bench, and an acting magistrate was actually 
taken and sent to prison by an order of the Chair- 
man. 

" 'Thus, sir, have I thrown together all that I can 
at this time. I am too blind to write fair, and too 
old to write much sense — but if my deposition before 
the Supreme Court of the United States would add 
more weight to a truth so well known here, it should 
be at the service of my fellow-citizens of the county 
and State generally. 

" T am, sir, your friend and humble servant, 

" 'John Simeson, Sen. 

" T. S. — I will give you a short anecdote. An 
aged man near me, on being asked if he knew any- 
thing of this affair, replied, "Och, aye, Tam Polk 
declared Independence long before any body else." 
This old man is 81/ 



"CERTIFICATE OF ISAAC ALEXANDER. 

" T hereby certify that I was present in Charlotte 
on the 19th and 20th days of May, 1775, when a 
regular deputation from all the Captains' companies 
of militia in the county of Mecklenburg, to wit : Col. 
Thomas Polk, Adam Alexander, Lieut.-Col. Abram 



200 The Mecklenburg 

Alexander, John McKnitt Alexander, Hezekiah 
Alexander, Ephraim Brevard, and a number of 
others, who met to consult and take measures for the 
peace and tranquillity of the citizens of said county, 
and who appointed Abraham Alexander their Chair- 
man, and Doctor Ephraim Brevard, Secretary ; who, 
after due consultation, declared themselves absolved 
from their allegiance to the King of Great Britain, 
and drew up a Declaration of their Independence, 
which was unanimously adopted; and employed 
Capt. James Jack to carry copies thereof to Con- 
gress, who accordingly went. These are a part of 
the transactions that took place at that time, as far 
as my recollection serves me. 

" Tsaac Alexander. 
" 'October 8, 1830/ 



"certificate of samuel wilson. 

" 'State of North Carolina, 
Mecklenburg County. 

" T do hereby certify, that in May, 1775, a com- 
mittee or delegation from the different militia com- 
panies in this county met in Charlotte; and after 
consulting together, they publicly declared their 
independence on Great Britain, and on her Govern- 
ment. This was done before a large collection of 
people, who highly approved of it. I was then and 
there present, and heard it read from the court- 
house door. Certified by me, 

" 'Samuel Wilson/ 



Declaration of Independence 201 

"certificate of john davidson. 

" l Beaver Dam, October 5, 1830. 
" 'Dear Sir : — I received your note of the 25th of 
last month, requiring information relative to the 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. As I 
am, perhaps, the only person living, who was a mem- 
ber of that Convention, and being far advanced in 
years, and not having my mind frequently directed 
to that circumstance for some years, I can give you 
but a very succinct history of that transaction. 
There were two men chosen from each captain's 
company, to meet in Charlotte, to take the subject 
into consideration. John McKnitt Alexander and 
myself were chosen from one company; and many 
other members were there that I now recollect, whose 
names I deem unnecessary to mention. When the 
members met, and were perfectly organized for busi- 
ness, a motion was made to declare ourselves inde- 
pendent of the Crown of Great Britain, which was 
carried by a large majority. Dr. Ephraim Brevard 
was then appointed to give us a sketch of the Declar- 
ation of Independence, which he did. James Jack 
was appointed to take it on to the American Con- 
gress, then sitting in Philadelphia, with particular 
instructions to deliver it to the North Carolina Dele- 
gation in Congress, (Hooper and Caswell.) When 
Jack returned, he stated that the Declaration was 
presented to Congress, and the reply was, that they 
highly esteemed the patriotism of the citizens of 
Mecklenburg; but they thought the measure too 
premature. 



202 The Mecklenburg 

" 'I am confident that the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence by the people of Mecklenburg was made public 
at least twelve months before that of the Congress 
of the United States. 

" 'I do certify that the foregoing statement, rela- 
tive to the Mecklenburg Independence is correct, and 
which I am willing to be qualified to, should it be 
required. 

" 'Yours respectfully, 

" 'John Davidson. 
" 'Doct. J. M. Alexander/ 



"Note. — The following is a copy of an original 
paper furnished by the writer of the foregoing cer- 
tificate, from which it would seem, that, from the 
period of the Mecklenburg Declaration, every 
individual friendly to the American cause was fur- 
nished by the Chairman of that meeting, Abram 
Alexander, with testimonials of the character he 
had assumed; and in this point of view the paper 
affords strong collateral testimony of the correctness 
of many of the foregoing certificates : 

" 'North Carolina, Mecklenburg County, 
November 28, 1775. 

" 'These may certify to all whom they may con- 
cern, that the bearer hereof, William Henderson, is 



Declaration of Independence 203 

allowed here to be a true friend to liberty, and 
signed the Association. 
" 'Certified by 

" 'Abr'm Alexander, Chairman 

" 'of the Committee of P. S.' 



LETTER FROM J. G. M. RAMSEY. 

" 'Mecklenburg, T. Oct. i, 1830. 

'"Dear Sir: — Yours of 21st ultimo was duly 
received. In answer I have only to say, that little 
is in my possession on the subject alluded to which 
you have not already seen. Subjoined are the cer- 
tificates of two gentlemen of this county, whose 
respectability and veracity are attested by their 
acquaintances here, as well as by the accompanying 
testimonials of the magistrates in whose neighbor- 
hood they reside. With this you will also receive 
extracts from letters on the same subject from gen- 
tlemen well known to you, and to the country at 
large. 

" 'I am, very respectfully, yours, &c, 

" 'J. G. M. Ramsey/ 



"CERTIFICATE OF JAMES JOHNSON. 



tt <i 



C I, James Johnson, now of Knox County, 
Tennessee, but formely of Mecklenburg County, 
North Carolina, do hereby certify, that to the best 



204 The Mecklenburg 

of my recollection, in the month of May, 1775, there 
were several meetings in Charlotte concerning the 
impending war. Being young, I was not called on 
to take an active part in the same; but one thing I 
do positively remember, that she (Mecklenburg 
County) did meet and hold a Convention, declared 
independence, and sent a man to Philadelphia with 
the proceedings. And I do further certify, that I 
am well acquainted with several of the men who 
formed or constituted said Convention, viz. : John 
McKnitt Alexander, Hezekiah Alexander, Abraham 
Alexander, Adam Alexander, Robert Irwin, Neill 
Morrison, John Flenniken, John Queary. 

" 'Certified by me this nth day of October, 1827. 

" 'James Johnson, 

" 'In my seventy- third year.' 



""CERTIFICATE OF ELIJAH JOHNSON AND JAMES 
WILHITE. 

" 'We, Elijah Johnson and James Wilhite, acting 
Justices of the Peace for the county of Knox, 
do certify, that we have been a long time well 
acquainted with Samuel Montgomery and James 
Johnson, both residents of Knox County; and that 
they are entitled to full credit, and any statement 
they may make to implicit confidence. 



Declaration of Independence 205 

" 'Given under our hands and seals this 4th day 
of October, 1830. 

" 'Elijah Johnson, (Seal.) 
" 'James Wilhite, (Seal.) 
" 'Justices of the Peace for Knox County/ 

"Note. — Mr. Montgomery's certificate does not 
purport to state the facts as having come under his 
own personal observation. It is therefore omitted in 
this publication." 



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